Possible scenario: Mom has residential physical custody of a child who receives Social Security Disability each month due to the disability of the mother who cannot work. Father wants a credit for the amount of the child’s disability checks in order to reduce his child support obligation under Missouri law.
Answer: No reduction for father becasue the disability money comes to the child because of the disability of the parent with custody–mom.
But the answer may be yes if the father was the disabled person and the child received disability payments due to the non-custodial father’s disability.
The Missouri case on point is Gerlach v. Adair, 211 S.W.3d 663, 667 hn.8 (Mo. Ct. App. W. D. 2007).
However, there is another angle in through the back door for the non-custodial father to try. That is that the Missouri Child Support Guidelines are just guidelines from which the court may deviate for good reason. And one factor which could cause a deviation is that the court is supposed to consider the child’s income in deciding how much child support to order.
One practical approach to this scenario was experienced in a Platte County, Missouri, court where the judge added the amount of money the child received each month due to the custodial mother’s disability, back into the total income of the mother which resulted in a small but fair discount in the amount of child support that the court ordered the non-custodial, non-disabled father to pay.
Kurt H. King
Law Office of Kurt H. King, 20 E. Franklin, Liberty, Clay County, Missouri 64068
Bankruptcy, Child Custody & Support, Divorce & Modification, Family Law, Personal Injury, Missouri Workers’ Compensation
The Law Office of Kurt H King 
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