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351 Ill. App. 3d 645

814 N.E.2d 187

286 Ill.Dec. 537

Thomas v. Diener

Appellate Court of Illinois

Decided August 4, 2004

Appellate Court of Illinois · decided 2004-08-04

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““(a) It shall be the duty of any payor who has been served with an income withholding notice to deduct and pay over income as provided in this Section. The payor shall deduct the amount designated in the income withholding notice *** beginning no later than the next payment of income which is payable or creditable to the obligor that occurs 14 days following the date the income withholding notice was mailed, sent by facsimile or other electronic means, or placed for personal delivery to or service on the payor. *** The payor shall pay the amount withheld to the State Disbursement Unit within 7 business days after the date the amount would (but for the duty to withhold income) have been paid or credited to the obligor. If the payor knowingly fails to pay any amount withheld to the State Disbursement Unit within 7 business days after the date the amount would have been paid or credited to the obligor, the payor shall pay a penalty of $100 for each day that the withheld amount is not paid to the State Disbursement Unit after the period of 7 business days has expired. The failure of a payor, on more than one occasion, to pay amounts withheld to the State Disbursement Unit within 7 business days after the date the amount would have been paid or credited to the obligor creates a presumption that the payor knowingly failed to pay over the amounts. *** A finding of a payor’s nonperformance within the time required under this Act must be documented by a certified mail return receipt s”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 354 Ill. App. 3d 1004 - In Re Marriage of Chen and Ulner

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 2004-08-04

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently January 2022

8 state decisions

50200420102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

JUSTICE McCULLOUGH,

¶1dissenting:

¶2I disagree that defendants sustained their burden of proving the child support checks were timely mailed.

¶3Section 35(a) of the Support Act provides in part:

“The payor shall pay the amount withheld to the State Disbursement Unit within 7 business days after the date the amount would (but for the duty to withhold income) have been paid or credited to the obligor.” 750 ILCS 28/35(a) (West 2002).

¶4With respect to payment by mail, the Statute on Statutes, section 1.25, provides in pertinent part:

“[A]ny payment of any kind or description required or authorized to be paid to[ ] the State or any political subdivision thereof, by the laws of this State:
(1) if transmitted through the United States mail, shall be deemed filed with or received by the State or political subdivision on the date shown by the post office cancellation mark stamped upon the envelope or other wrapper containing it[.]” 5 ILCS 70/ 1.25 (West 2002).

¶5The trial court found:

“Defendant, in support that his method of mailing complied with 750 ILCS 28/35, did not produce any evidence when the mail was picked up at his private rural mailbox, or that the rural mail carrier had any duty to pick up such mail from Defendant’s private rural mailbox or to forward such mail left in a rural mailbox to the person to whom addressed.”

¶6Placing mail in a private rural mailbox does not meet the requirements of section 35(a) of the Support Act or section 1.25 of the Statute on Statutes.

¶7In Dunahee, we suggested that pursuant to section 35, “Defendant merely needed to put each week’s check in a stamped envelope addressed to the appropriate party, and place the envelope in any corner mailbox.” Dunahee, 273 Ill. App. 3d at 209, 652 N.E.2d at 445. In the present case, the trial court found that the evidence presented did not meet the standard suggested in Dunahee.

¶8The trial court’s judgment should be affirmed.

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