Laches does not bar a contempt motion for unpaid child support in Georgia, and courts have rejected it against overdue alimony too.
Child Support
In Wynn v. Craven, 301 Ga. 30 (2017), a trial court denied a mother’s contempt motion because she had waited about fifteen years to claim the full support ordered. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed, holding that “laches does not apply to claims for uncollected child support” because the right belongs to the child, and that the trial court “erred in forgiving Father’s arrears.”
In Sharpe v. Perkins, 284 Ga. App. 376 (2007), a father argued laches against the mother’s contempt motion for his share of private school tuition under their settlement. The trial court declined to hold him in contempt but found he owed over $7,000, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, calling the laches argument “without merit.”
Alimony
In Wood v. Wood, 239 Ga. 120 (1977), a former husband held in contempt for unpaid alimony claimed his former wife had agreed in 1966 to forgo $130 a month. The Georgia Supreme Court found the evidence showed only that “for 10 years he successfully frustrated her efforts to collect this money,” “[u]pon similar reasoning” found no merit in his laches defense, and affirmed the contempt finding.
Likewise, in Sovern v. Sovern, 156 Ga. App. 752 (1980), the Court of Appeals upheld striking a former husband’s laches defense to a suit for back alimony under an out-of-state decree, because such a suit is a legal action, not an equitable one. Laches belongs to equitable claims, where Howington v. Howington, 281 Ga. 242 (2006), also requires proof of harm from the delay.
Paying the Arrears
Though the father in Wynn owed the full amount, the Court allowed the trial court on remand to consider any financial hardship to him and his dependents “in determining the timing and manner of the payment of the arrears.”
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