All requests for support enforcement and paternity establishment services must first be made through the State of Washington, Department of Social and Health Services Division of Child Support (DCS). (external link)

The DCS office serving King County is located at 500 First Avenue South (near Safeco Field). The telephone numbers are 206-341-7000 and 800-526-8658.

The Family Support Division of the King County Prosecuting Attorney's office is open Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Paternity interviews are held from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. An appointment is necessary. Our telephone number in Seattle is 206-296-9020. The telephone number for our Kent office is 206-296-9595. Office Addresses/Driving Directions

As many of our visitors are without representation, the following link to Superior Court resources may be helpful: King County Superior Court Clerk's Office (http://www.metrokc.gov/kcscc/).

Washington has laws which enable DSHS, Division of Child Support, to collect child support through wage withholding and other ways of intercepting funds belonging to an obligor parent without the requirement of a court proceeding for each collection action. All money collected is processed through the Washington Support Registry, which maintains complete records of payments due and funds disbursed. These, and other administrative collection remedies, are available without cost to all Washington residents and are provided automatically to those custodians who receive public assistance payments for dependent children.

There are some child support processes that still must be handled in court. Paternity establishment, modifications of court orders, and contempt of court proceedings to enforce support orders are examples. For these matters, DCS will refer cases to a county prosecuting attorney. The prosecutor will file cases in court and take whatever steps are needed to determine paternity, establish a court order for support, modify court orders, or enforce support obligations through application of the court's power to find delinquent obligors in contempt of court.

Working Units of the Family Support Division

• Appearance Teams
• Contempt (Judicial Enforcement) Section
• Interstate Cases (Responding Only)
• Modification
• Paternity

Appearance Teams

Intake
Private dissolution and modification litigants must notify the prosecutor if public assistance is or has been paid for children in the household. Our office receives notice by mail, process server, personal delivery or by forwarding from other agencies. Cases are screened to determine if our office has or has had an active case involving parties and to determine the nature of the proceeding.

Appearance Teams
Family Support teams represent the interests of the state in preserving any debt owed to the state and state's interest in adequate and appropriate support for children. The prosecutor does not represent either parent.

Teams track cases; seek further information from parties or attorneys if necessary; determine if it is sufficient to simply approve proposed orders of the parties or if further intervention is necessary. Appearance at motions or trial is necessary when the state's interest is at issue.

It is common that issues of paternity are present in divorce cases, involving children born before marriage or while the husband and wife were separated. Teams monitor cases to ensure that the issues of parentage or non-parentage of children born during a marriage are dealt with pursuant to the statute. If the parties decide to pursue judicial establishment of parentage through our office, those cases are handled by a deputy in the paternity unit.

The Appearance Unit also handles Qualified Domestic Relations Order cases (directives to retirement plans to send money to child support recipients), cases in which a DCS action is challenged in court, and the need to vacate orders entered without proper notice to the state.

Contempt (Judicial Enforcement) Section

Intake
Cases for enforcement of established support obligations are referred to us when administrative remedies have not been effective, there is a large arrearage or failure to pay consistently a court ordered support obligation, and it appears that Contempt of Court proceedings could be effective. These cases are sent to us by DCS via electronic transfer along with copies of relevant documents.

Filing Unit
The case is screened for jurisdictional issues and whether there is a need to register an order from another county or state. A letter is sent to the obligor parent offering to handle the case out of court in a pre-trial diversion unit (Alternatives to Court Enforcement-ACE). If the absent obligor responds and sets an appointment, the case is transferred to the ACE Unit. If not, or if the case comes back from ACE Unit, an Order to Show Cause setting a court appearance date is produced and sent to court for signature by a Commissioner. The signed order is served by private process server. If the address is bad or we are unable to serve the order, we make another effort to locate the obligor by a thorough computer search, and if we are unable to find a good address for service, the case is sent back to DCS.

Alternates to Court Enforcement (A.C.E.) Unit
The objective of this unit is to reach a written agreement with the obligor that will lead to payment of full current support and arrears as soon as realistically possible. Reduced payments will be accepted temporarily. The potential benefits to the system are lighter court calendars, less public defender expense, and faster commencement of payments. The target population of the A.C.E. Unit are those obligors who need time to work out payment problems and are willing to be accountable.

Enforcement Teams
The Enforcement teams represent the state's interests of the child(ren) at Show Cause re Contempt hearings. Deputy Prosecutors present the facts of each case and make recommendations for disposition. They also draft and present orders to the Court.

The usual practice is to initially obtain an order that sets a series of hearings and establishes requirements that must be met each month. Attendance at a hearing may be excused if conditions are met prior to the hearing. Failure to comply may result in a finding of contempt and additional requirements or coercive custody.

If the obligor fails to appear as ordered, a "bench warrant authorization" is issued by the court. The obligor is notified that a warrant has been issued and the obligor is encouraged to contact the unit to arrange for a quash of the warrant and entry of a new order. The King County Prosecutor's Office works cooperatively with the King County Sheriff's Office to serve warrants and to notify obligors of available resources to arrange to have them cancelled.

Interstate Cases

Initiating Cases

Because an obligated parent may reside outside of the child's home state, does not necessarily mean that parent is beyond the exercise of home state jurisdiction over him or her. In Washington State a proceeding can be initiated by a persons' request to DCS for support enforcement services, or by DCS itself based upon an assignment of rights to support by a person receiving TANF (public assistance benefits) on behalf of a child, or where the support of a child is being provided through foster care by the state. In these instances, DCS is defined by UIFSA as the initiating tribunal (within the initiating state) that has duties to perform which are spelled out by the new UIFSA law effective January 2007.

UIFSA provides a set of rules for interstate establishment and enforcement of child support obligations that maximizes, as much as possible, efficiency in obtaining support for children.

In King County it is the Division of Child Support and not the Prosecuting Attorney's Office that engages in the initiating process, however, the prosecutor may be called upon from time to time in order to assist in obtaining information necessary to complete the initiating process.

Responding Cases

When the Division of Child Support determines that a paternity referral to the Prosecuting Attorney's Office Family Support Division should occur, the deputy proceeds with the case as though it were an "interstate" paternity. As a general rule, the only issues addressed by the court in these cases are parentage and child support. No other issues may be joined in the case e.g., custody, visitation. However, in rare circumstances the UCCJA may allow a parent to raise custody and visitation issues that can be determined in this State's court.

The success rate in this type of case referred by King County to other states is about 30%, as opposed to 50% success rate in cases referred by other states to us.

Intake (enforcement)

If the obligor parent lives in another state and DCS cannot use out-of-state wage withholding, the case is referred to us for an interstate petition.

Enforcement Unit

Our Enforcement Unit reviews referrals to decide on appropriate remedies to seek and obtain necessary additional information from custodial parents; obtain certified copies of orders when necessary; prepare petitions and attachments and keep abreast of varying procedures in different states.

The high turnover of cases is due to primarily to the difficulty associated with locating parents in other states.

Modification Cases

Cases for modification or adjustment of support orders are referred by DCS when its periodic review of a public assistance case indicates that a modification or adjustment is appropriate, when one of the parties has requested a modification or adjustment and the likely outcome meets minimum standards or when a party whose case is in our contempt of court unit requests a modification or adjustment.

Intake (modification/adjustment)
The intake paralegal screens each case for jurisdiction and venue issues, and ascertains whether there is need to register a foreign support order. The intake unit obtains support orders (certified or otherwise) that may be needed for the modification or adjustment action, sets up the files and assigns the cases to litigation teams. If a foreign order needs to be registered, the necessary pleadings are prepared for presentation to the court and filing.

Litigation

Preliminary financial information of the parties is assembled and a summons and petition or a motion for support adjustment is prepared (together with proposed worksheets, blank financial disclosure forms, instruction and service information). In the petition or motion the request for modification is based upon known earnings information, Employment Security wage data or imputation of income according to the law.

Service of the summons and petition for modification is either by certified mail or private process server. If necessary quick locate is done if an address is bad. If service cannot be obtained, the case is closed and returned to DCS. The case is filed with the court upon proof of service. The clerk of court issues a case schedule, which sets a trial date approximately 115 days away. Two weeks prior to the trial date, the State submits trial briefs and proposed orders to the court and the parties based upon the financial information provided by the parties, Employment Security or imputation of income. Trials are held on Fridays in Seattle, and Wednesdays in Kent and are based upon written affidavits only. Brief oral argument is allowed from each party.

Service of the motion for adjustment is by regular mail. Motions for adjustments require a two-week notice and are heard on the Family Law Motions calendar before a court commissioner. Adjustments frequently require at least one continuance because of late discovery arriving from one or both of the parties. As with modifications, the presentation to the court is based upon submitted affidavits and allows brief oral argument from each party.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorneys represent the State's interest in the support of children. The prosecutor represents neither parent. The objective is to obtain a support order, which complies with the law governing child support. courts often ask our office to prepare support worksheets and proposed orders.

We are open Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Paternity interviews are held from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. An appointment is necessary.

Our Seattle telephone number is 206-296-9020. The phone number for our Kent office is 206-296-9595. Office Addresses/Driving Directions

Intake

The Family Support Section receives approximately 550 to 600 paternity referrals each month from DCS. The referral is an electronic transfer by computer of any case at DCS in which paternity of a child is at issue. A letter is sent to the custodian of the child informing her that she is obligated (if she receives public assistance) to come to this office for a paternity interview. Our office interviews about 250 custodians a month. For those on assistance who do not come in, a notice is sent to the public assistance office to commence a non-cooperation action. A public assistance receipient who is found to be non-cooperative will have his/her grant reduced.

If the custodian does not have complete identifying information about the child's possible father(s) or a verifiable address, the office conducts detailed on-line searches of numerous data sources and follows up with mail or telephone inquiries. Unsuccessful locate cases are sent back to DCS for further investigation.

In some instances, the mother and child live in another state, the alleged father lives in King County, and the other state does not have personal jurisdiction over the father. This type of establishment of paternity is a UIFSA (Uniform Interstate Family Support Act) action and is commenced at the request of another state. A UIFSA case is handled as a regular paternity case once received by our office.

Filing Unit

When the interview has been conducted and the alleged father has been located, a petition and summons is produced naming each located alleged father, the mother, and the non-parent custodian (if any) as respondents. We attempt personal service by private process servers on all alleged fathers and service by mail on mothers. Long-arm jurisdiction is utilized whenever possible when alleged fathers are out-of-state. Requests for current and back support are based on the respondents' past income, if known, or imputed income. If the alleged father is served and responds, the case is transferred to a paternity team.

Any alleged father who is served and fails to respond is then given notice of a default hearing and the case is set for default judgment. If the alleged father is not served and after additional locate efforts have been made without success, the case is returned to DCS for their follow-up.

Paternity Litigation Teams

The Paternity Litigation teams are responsible for establishing paternity, obtaining back support judgments, obtaining current support orders, and facilitating entry of agreed parenting plans.

The issue of paternity is usually resolved through DNA testing. Our office arranges the taking of DNA samples from respondents and child/children by swabbing the inside of the mouth. This procedure is quick and painless. These samples are then sent for testing by private labs under contract with DSHS. The results of the genetic testing are typically available in two weeks.

Paternity Litigation teams use Interrogatories and Employment Security records to obtain income information. Based on this and other information, child support obligations are determined by the application of state child support guidelines. If there is an arrears judgment, money collected will be divided between the custodian and the state based on the custodial parent's public assistance history.

As of 2002, the child is no longer a party to the paternity action, and a guardian ad litem is no longer required.

Most cases are resolved after genetic testing and financial discovery by Agreed Order or Summary Judgment. Fewer than 5% go to trial.

Updated: May 9, 2008