Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Don Hubin
Background
Legal Realism was a distinctly American approach to philosophy
of law. It was an attempt to take a hard-headed, cold-eyed look at how the legal system actually operates. It was a reaction to a formalistic account of law and mechanical jurisprudence.
Mechanical Jurisprudence
Viewed law as a complex system of set and precise rules created by the legislature. Viewed the role of judges to be simply determining which rules applied to the facts of the case. Legal Realists saw this as a distorted picture of law and of the role of courts in a legal system.
Moderate (Qualified) Legal Realism Denies the existence of legal rules regulating behavior but not the existence of all legal rules empowering people or defining legal offices.
Statutes and Court Behavior: A Case Study in the Motivation for Legal Realism
Until recently (2001), Ohio law defined gross income for purposes of determining child
support as follows: Gross income means, except as excluded in this division, the total of all earned and unearned income from all sources during a calendar year, whether or not the income is taxable, and includes, but is not limited to, income from salaries, wages...spousal support actually received from a person not a party to the support proceeding for which actual gross income is being determined, and all other sources of income; self-generated income; and potential cash flow from any source. (R.C. 3113.215(A)(2), emphases added to original.)
amount of spousal support received from a party to the child support action. But the court held otherwise.
But, the Bailey Court determined that spousal support paid from one party to a child support action to
another is not income to the recipient for purposes of calculating child support.
R.C. 3113.215(A)(2) defines gross income to include spousal support actually received from a person not a party to the support proceeding for which actual gross income is being determined. Therefore spousal support is not income to [when received from a person who is a party to the child support action].
The Bailey court went on to reason that since the spousal support was not income to the recipient in these cases, it had to be counted in the income of the parent who paid the spousal support despite the fact that the statute later specifically exempts any court ordered payments from the definition of gross income.
If you were an attorney for either of the parties in this situation, what wouldand what shouldyou advise your client is the law in Ohio? If you are a party in such a case, what would you want to know about the law in Ohio?
Too Broad
This account cant distinguish between legal decisions and