$1.5M in child support remains unclaimed
By Lynda Arakawa
Advertiser Capitol Bureau
The state has paid out about $1.6 million in back child-support payments resulting from a 1998 class-action lawsuit, and about $1.5 million more is left to be claimed, officials said yesterday.
The figures were reported yesterday at a hearing before Circuit Judge Sabrina McKenna, who oversaw the case brought by attorneys for a divorced mother who was not receiving timely child-support payments through the Child Support Enforcement Agency.
Agency administrator Arnold Enoki said the state began sending checks in August to parents owed child-support payments. The state earlier distributed about 8,000 to 9,000 letters and claim forms to people designated by the court as part of the class-action suit.
As of Monday, he said, 2,850 people have filed claims, but others who have been in contact with the agency may also have received money without having to file a claim.
The $1.6 million had been sent out long ago but about $1 million in checks were returned to the agency because of bad addresses. About $605,000 ended up as checks that were never cashed, said Deputy Attorney General Charles Fell.
"Our mission is to get the money to these folks," Fell said. "We're pleased that we were able to get it out to this extent."
There was about $1.5 million left to be claimed as of the end of August, according to Fell. The deadline for filing claims is Nov. 28.
"I'm thrilled," said Honolulu attorney Francis O'Brien, who with three other lawyers filed the lawsuit against the state in 1998. O'Brien said some of that money has been in the agency's bank account for 13 to 15 years. "But if we had not brought the action, I'm firmly convinced it would still be there."
O'Brien said payments range from thousands of dollars to less than $100. He said one man who showed up at McKenna's courtroom yesterday morning had a check for 77 cents.
The suit was filed in 1998 on behalf of Anne Kemp, the divorced mother who discovered that although child-support payments were being deducted from her ex-husband's paycheck, the agency was not passing along the money within 48 hours, as required by state and federal law.
Kemp said that when she tried to work out the problem, the agency was unresponsive. She sued and the case became a class-action lawsuit on behalf of others who experienced similar problems.
"We hope that as this goes on that the CSEA will take this as a message that they need to be conscious of how they deal with their clientele," O'Brien said. "Remember, all of this started when Anne Kemp complained and one of the employees told her that if she wanted to do something about it she'd just have to sue. And look what happened. So be careful what you wish for sometimes."
Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070.
