67 N.C. App. 37 - Faught v. Faught’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “a well-established line of authority which holds that a failure to pay may be willful within the meaning of the contempt statutes where a supporting spouse is unable to pay because he or she voluntarily takes on additional financial obligations or divests him or herself of assets or income after entry of the support order. See, e.g., Williford v. Williford, 56 N.C. App. 610 , 289 S.E.2d 907 (1982) (supporting spouse took lower-paying job and applied salary to matters other than support obligations); Frank v. Glanville, 45 N.C. App. 313 , 262 S.E.2d 677 (1980) (supporting spouse failed to take steps to obtain employment which would have enabled him to meet obligations); Bennett v. Bennett, 21 N.C. App. 390 , 204 S.E.2d 554 (1974) (defendant spouse took lower páying job to avoid support obligations). A contrary rule would permit a supporting spouse to avoid his or her obligations by the simple means of expending assets as he or she pleased, and then pleading inability to pay support, thereby insulating him or herself from punishment by an order of contempt.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 204 N.C. App. 188 - Shippen v. Shippen