Child support or Life Support

Christie and David Bren just want what's due them, their lawyer says; no more, no less. And by their calculations, that could be about $2.2 million a month -- each.

The teenage children of billionaire Orange County land developer Donald L. Bren will return to court Jan. 3 to try to force their father to pay child support commensurate with his wealth.

Billionaire

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Bren, chairman of the Irvine Co. and one of the country's richest businessmen, said he is willing to pay whatever a judge deems appropriate, but has been fighting efforts to force him to disclose details about his assets and finances.

The dispute, according legal experts, has potential implications for the way courts determine child support and is the latest in a series of legal battles in which California's rich and famous have fought to keep their financial holdings private.

Last year, for example, supermarket billionaire Ronald Burkle tried repeatedly to keep his personal finances secret in a bitter divorce, leading to a ruling that overturned a state law allowing litigants to seal court records.

According to court papers, Bren had two children with Jennifer McKay Gold, whom he never married. For years, the couple had an out-of-court agreement on the amount of financial support the billionaire would pay for the children. Ultimately, Gold and the children went to court, arguing that Bren wasn't paying enough. The dispute sparked a series of lawsuits and legal appeals.

The current litigation centers largely on a complex formula that judges typically use to fashion support orders. To craft those orders, judges require detailed financial information on a parent's ability to pay, as well as information on the amount of time each parent spends with the child. Judges can change the support amount suggested under the formula depending on the unique circumstances of a case, experts said.

Under state law, child support is largely based on the parents' income, so the child can share in the same standard of living as the wealthier parent. There is no upper limit on the amount of support that can be ordered. The average child support order in Los Angeles County is $345 per month, said Al Reyes of the county Child Support Services Department.

Grace Ganz Blumberg, a professor at the UCLA School of Law who helped create the child support formula, said the system was set up for the average litigant, not the very rich.

"Child support rules . . . don't make a lot of sense when applied to people of extraordinary means," she said.

One issue a judge must determine, Blumberg said, is whether Christie, 19, and David, 15, have a legitimate need for their father's financial information, or whether they are seeking it as a ploy to harass him in hopes of receiving an enormous settlement.

Herma Hill Kay, a professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, was skeptical of Bren's claims.

"Because you've got a lot of money, you don't need to abide by the disclosure rules? That argument doesn't work," Kay said. "The court has to apply the guidelines any time a judge sets child support. Saying 'I have more' won't take the court off the hook."

According to court papers, Bren and Gold signed an agreement in 1989 after a seven-month negotiation that provided Gold $3,500 per month of general support for each child.

The amount was increased to $5,000 a month in 1991, and was revised again later to provide an additional $2,500 a month for private school costs.

In turn, she agreed not to go to court, and to keep his relationship with them a secret. According to Bren's lawyers, Bren paid $17,000 a month for each child, tax-free.

Bren promised "always to take care of the children," Gold alleged in court papers. The developer made all payments, but declined her separate requests for a new car and a piano, according to court papers.

In 1997, Gold alleges, Bren stopped seeing the children after she told him over dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel that she "wanted to change their relationship, that she wanted to no longer be intimately involved with him."

Four years later, Gold said she ran into Bren at the Ivy, an exclusive restaurant near Beverly Hills, where he "refused to speak to the children or acknowledge them."

In 2003, Christie and David went to court alleging that Bren broke his promise to support them in a style commensurate with his wealth.

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Is the child support system set up to punish non-custodial fathers

For years, men have stated that the child support system has its flaws. People are quick to label them as “dead beat dads” and swat away their complaints. YES ONLY FATHERS ARE LABEL DEAD BEAT...

It is a fact that some men are dreadful parents, but not all of them are. Sometimes, the father who’s trying to take responsibility gets milked by a system that favors women, regardless of any measures men take to provide for their children. LIKE THERE ARE NO DREADFUL MOTHERS OUT THERE

Recently, the Richmond Voice talked to Mason Roberts, a father of two who currently owes $30,000 in back child support. M:

“The courts want to keep upholding the image that people, especially African American men, don’t want to pay or take care of their kids, and that’s not it,” he said. WHICH IS NOT TRUE

“We just want fair treatment.” DAMN RIGHT!!!!

Roberts, 41, separated from his wife in 1998. He offered her three options then.

“I’ll take both the kids and you don’t have to pay any child support and you can come and get them anytime you want,” he told his wife of one year.

“Or, you take the girls and I’ll take our son,” he said in reference to a third child from his wife’s previous marriage.

And finally, he told her, “I’ll take them for the school year and you keep them on holidays and during the summer.”

But none of those options satisfied her. And from there, it was the start of a long road to an ugly child support case. WELL I WONDER WHY, BECAUSE A MOTHER WILL TELL YOU THEY ARE HER CHILDREN ONLY

After his wife was granted custody of their children, Roberts was making about $58,000 a year and his total child support payments was a little over $900 every month. YEAH, AND I BET IF THE MOTHER HAD TO PAID SHE WOULD BE PAYING NO $900 EVERY MONTH..

Roberts had no complaints. He was able to afford it so he gladly paid it.

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Child Support laws discriminate against fathers

Chipeur Advocates - News: "Child support laws discriminate against fathers, Montreal lawsuit claims
Federal Court in Montreal asked to strike down formula that violates Charter guarantee of equality and does not preserve child support for children
December 24, 2002 - MONTREAL - The federal government's Child Support Guidelines are biased against fathers and violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, claims a major lawsuit filed against the government in Federal Court yesterday.
The lawsuit, A.B. and G.H. v. Her Majesty the Queen, exposes the unfair formula that the Federal Government developed to determine child support payments - a formula that is not based on the true cost of raising children. The lawsuit shows how Canada's Child Support Guidelines mandate a massive transfer of wealth from men to women for no demonstrable purpose. The wealth transfer is not related to child support and could only be described as extra alimony. But the lawsuit asserts that the federal government cannot use the child support rules to pad alimony payments.
The lawsuit also challenges the rules that remove paying parents - usually fathers - from any financial decision-making for the children. By doing so, the Child Support Guidelines interfere with the parent-child relationship.
The statement of claim highlights at least seven significant flaws in the current Divorce Act:
1. It arbitrarily requires men (in 90% of the cases) to make payments to their former spouses, using a formula that is not based on the needs of the children - this violates the Charter;
2. It does not require the child support payments to be accounted for or in fact spent on the children - this deprives children of financial security;
3. It establishes a new tax, a tax on being divorced and a father � and directs the tax revenues to a former spouse, not the children;
4. It v"

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