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Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-5-104

Failure to comply with child support order — Criminal sanctions — Inference of obligor's ability to pay

Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case Ahern v. Ahern (2000)

Most recently applied in Lisa E. Burris v. James Morton Burris (September 2016)

Acts 1961, ch. 201, § 1; 1978, ch. 882, § 1; T.C.A., § 36-835; Acts 2003, ch. 189, § 1; 2007, ch. 502, § 2.

How often courts cite this section

199620002010201610
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) Any person, ordered to provide support and maintenance for a minor child or children, who fails to comply with the order or decree, may, in the discretion of the court, be punished by imprisonment in the county workhouse or county jail for a period not to exceed six (6) months.

(2) No arrest warrant shall issue for the violation of any court order of support if such violation occurred during a period of time in which the obligor was incarcerated in any penal institution and was otherwise unable to comply with the order.

(3) In addition to the sanction provided in subsection (a), the court shall have the discretion to require an individual who fails to comply with the order or decree of support and maintenance to remove litter from the state highway system, public playgrounds, public parks, or other appropriate locations for any prescribed period or to work in a recycling center or other appropriate location for any prescribed period of time in lieu of or in addition to any of the penalties otherwise provided; provided, however, that any person sentenced to remove litter from the state highway system, public playgrounds, public parks, or other appropriate locations or to work in a recycling center shall be allowed to do so at a time other than such person's regular hours of employment.

(4) In any proceeding to enforce child support, the court may apply an inference that the obligor had the ability to pay the ordered child support as set forth in § 36-5-101(a)(8).

Current official text: Tennessee Code (LexisNexis). Digitized from the UniCourt Code Improvement Commission public-domain capture. Reproduced from public-domain Tennessee statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.