A Small Victory for Men in Child Support Claims

A High Court decision in a case brought against the Attorney General’s Office was handed down in favor of former Tropic Air C.E.O. Steven Schulte.  In 2018, Schulte brought a claim against AG’s office in which he sought a declaration that sections Forty-eight and Fifty-two of the Families and Children’s Act are contrary to and violate his rights as it regards to the payment of child support.  The matter arises from a separation between himself and his former wife.  Schulte was represented by Senior Counsel Magali Marin-Young.

Magali Marin-Young

Magali Marin-Young, SC, Attorney-at-law

“In this particular case, Mr. Schulte was seventy-seven-years-old and had married a twenty-seven-year-old lady.  At the time of the marriage, the lady had two children for fathers other than Mr. Schulte.  In other words, they were not his biological children.  The marriage lasted seven months only, and after the breakup of the marriage, the twenty-seven-year-old wife filed a claim at the magistrate’s court family division to claim maintenance for her two children against Mr. Schulte.  We were asked, Mr. Schulte asked us to defend the matter.  Now when the claim was first heard, the first magistrate did not award maintenance.  Mrs. Schulte, at the time, Mrs. Elida Johana Escobar Schulte, filed another application for maintenance and she was given an ex parte order against Mr. Schulte for him to pay over five thousand dollars a month for these two boys.  We then applied to the magistrate to set aside that order and we also brought to the magistrate’s attention that we intended to challenge Section 48, Subsection 1 of the Families and Children’s Act because it was discriminatory.  That section is discriminatory because it imposes a liability on a man to maintain not only his children, but also to maintain the children of his wife who are living with him at the time, whether are those children are his biologically or not.  And it was under that section that the magistrate had awarded over five thousand per month against Mr. Schulte to maintain these two boys.”