Rule 373.Enforcement Proceedings

Rule 373 decides how an enforcement case gets into the expedited process once a support order already exists and someone is not paying. Most proceedings seeking a remedy under a support statute belong in front of the child support magistrate. The exceptions are narrow: evidentiary hearings on contempt, criminal non-support charges, motions to vacate a recognition of paternity or a paternity adjudication, criminal contempt, and anything else a specific statute puts off-limits all stay out of the expedited process, though civil contempt is still allowed there under Rule 353.01, subd. 2.

How the case starts depends on whether the underlying statute already sets up a hearing procedure. When the statute gives a party the right to a hearing and spells out how to get one, the case starts with a notice of hearing, and the hearing itself follows the same hearing procedure used throughout the expedited process. When the statute does not provide any procedure for getting a hearing, the enforcement proceeding instead starts the way an ordinary motion does, under the general motion rule. Civil contempt, treated separately, starts under its own rule as well.

For a parent who is owed support and not being paid, this rule mostly decides which door to walk through rather than what to prove. If the enforcement statute already promises a hearing on request, that request is a notice of hearing under this rule. If it does not, the same paperwork used to modify or set support, a notice of motion and motion, does the job instead. Either path lands the case in front of the same child support magistrate who hears the rest of the case.