Notification of Court Date

[Becki C.]

state: tennessee

Hi. I have a general question for anyone out there. Thanks for any info in advance.

My husband is taking his ex-wife to juvenile court on sept. 10 for contempt for non-payment of child support. ex-wife is currently $28,000.00 in arrearages. the court was supposed to send his ex-wife a letter of notification letting her know the court date. well, here we are on sept. 3rd and the court told my husband they have not notified his ex-wife yet. with the holiday weekend coming up, the court couldn't hope to mailthe letter before tuesday, sept. 7 at this point. should we take the bull by the horns and send his ex-wife a certified letter ourselves to notify her? i mean, i realize it's not as effective as a court summons and in no way "orders" her to appear; however, we just want to make sure she is notified and will hopefully show up. so my question is this:

Is it prudent of us to send a letter ourselves to my husnad's ex to facilitate the ex-wife's appearance in court or should we let it go, risk her not showing up and dealing with a continuance?

 

[tigger22472]

Either way it wouldn't matter... If she's not served properly through the courts then she has no obligation to show up and they will try again at another time. I've so BEEN THERE DONE THAT!

 

[Becki C.]

thanks for your response. the ex-wife has not missed a court date with us as yet and that's why i think as long as she's notified, she'll show up. my fear is that without any notification, she certainly won't be there because she won't know about it. juvenile court only sends a letter in the mail to notify her (according to our attorney), they do not literally "serve" the summons on her through the sheriff's department. of course, you might know our attorney is out of town until the 9th and it will be too late at that point to find anything from her that would be useful, considering our court date is on the 10th. it would be too late to mail anything to the ex-wife at that point. i was just wondering if sending a letter ourselves would be a good "back up" plan to give the ex-wife notification.

 

[tigger22472]

You could try it since you think she'll show! I did that once but because he wasn't served, he didn't show and legally didn't have to.

 

[BL]

This first time I got a summons / notice , I wasn't served properly .
I didn't know what to think since CONTEMPT was written in there.

When I showed, the hearing Officer noticed I hadn't been served properly and ask me If I wanted to proceed anyways since I would have to come back at some date in the near future anyways.

I agreed for it to be heard .