Disclaimer:  This is a series of blogs related to the
impact of COVID-19 on the court system; in particular, the Massachusetts
Probate and Family Court.  This
information may be outdated and it is important to look at the court’s
website.  Also, different courts have
different particularities.  I have gotten
this from both speaking to other lawyers’ and the staff at the Probate and
Family Court along with Zoom conferences and other articles along with reading
the standing orders.

Again,
you want to use your common sense and realize you will be going to court at some
point or another; whether the court will consider that an emergency or not, I think
as a general rule the courts would not consider child  support modification or contempt’s as an
emergency, but always just depends on the circumstance.   It does make a tremendous amount of sense to
file an action. If your income is going down and you are looking for child
support to be reduced and to file modification and get the other party served
so that the court can retroactively grant the relief to the day of the service.

In
addition, filing a Contempt, Answer & Counterclaim or bringing whatever
action that you might need to bring again, it might not be an emergency in
terms on how the courts look at it although, every case is unique but getting
the pleadings in are important. If there are ways to negotiate or work with a mediator
or conciliator that also would make a lot of sense and you want to use common
sense in terms of both a contempt action whether that party could pay and choosing
not to pay anything.  It is important to
look at that in a common sense standpoint for you but also the way the courts
will eventually look at that as well.