How will pregnancy effect my son's income?

Q: An NBA basketball team drafted my son two years ago; he signed a contract for many millions of dollars a year, and moved to a city at the other end of the country. He’s not married.

He came to visit me after last season and stayed with me in a house, which he bought for me in Lauderdale. While he was here, he took out one of the girls he went out with in high school. She wound up pregnant, we think on purpose.

The baby is not due for another seven months. He has no future with this woman, and is frightened about the amount of money she thinks she is entitled to as child support. She is making outrageous demands, and the baby is not even born. She wants a car, a house, and money for herself.

Does this woman have any rights against him? Before she got herself pregnant, she worked at a minimum wage job. She quit, and he’s supporting her. Does he have to? How much child support can she get out of him? Will my son have rights to see and be with his child?

A: Unless the process has changed recently your son’s friend could not have gotten herself pregnant. On the other hand, you son should not assume that he is the one who got her pregnant, and should immediately ask that a DNA test be doe to establish whether or not he is the father.

If he is the father, he will have all of the duties and rights, as would any other father, including a right to have regular access to his child.

His duties will be to pay for, or at least help to pay for the woman’s uninsured medical expenses during pregnancy and through the birth of the child. Thereafter he will be responsible for child support under the Florida child support guidelines, and Florida case law.

The guidelines are based upon a schedule and arithmetic. For one child guidelines call for a payment of $1,437.00 a month for the first $10,000.00 a month of net income plus 5% of all net income over $10,000.00 a month. However, Florida case law allows the judge discretion to lower that amount, when the application of the guidelines would provide the mother with a sum of money far over the reasonable needs of the child.

For instance, if your son’s gross income was about ten million a year, his net after taxes would be over six million a year and over $500,000.00 a month. Guidelines child support would be over $20,000.00 a month.

When the paternity suit is filed, after the baby is born, his attorney will negotiate with the woman’s counsel to try to reach an agreement which will be far less than guidelines support, but still generous as compared the woman’s pre-pregnancy lifestyle.

If no agreement can be reached, and the case goes to trial, the judge must first calculate the guidelines support. However, the judge will then have the discretion to deviate downward from the guidelines amount to a reasonable amount under the circum stances. Even though the judge will be dealing with a newborn he, or she can consider the father’s ability to provide first class housing, transportation, and education as part of the analysis.

Even with applying these considerations, the amount of support ordered will probably be far less than the child support guidelines estimate above. You son will have the right to be a part of the child’s life. The mother will have no rights of support from your son other than child support.

Michael H. Gora has been certified by the Board of Specialization of The Florida Bar as a specialist in family and matrimonial law, and is a partner with Shapiro Blasi Wasserman & Gora P.A. in Boca Raton.