Haifa Court Rejects Father's Bid to Cancel Child Support Over False Alienation Claims
The Haifa Family Court rejected a father's petition to cancel child support, ruling that he abandoned his daughters years ago and falsely blamed the mother for parental alienation while accumulating 290,000 NIS in unpaid debt.
A Bitter Family Dispute Over Child Support
The Haifa Family Court recently rejected a lawsuit filed by a father of two daughters who sought to cancel his child support payments. The father claimed that the total lack of contact between him and his daughters was caused by parental alienation orchestrated by their mother. However, Judge Tal Paperny ruled that it was actually the father who had abandoned the relationship over many years and made no genuine effort to restore it.
According to the mother, the father abandoned the girls when they were just 6 and 4 years old. She further stated that he has not been paying child support anyway, having "used every possible trick to avoid the enforcement of the child support ruling." She noted that by the time the lawsuit was filed, the father had accumulated a debt of approximately 290,000 NIS in the Enforcement and Collection Authority.
Accusations of Parental Alienation
In contrast, the father insisted that the mother was solely responsible for the disconnect. He claimed that years of incitement on her part, amounting to severe parental alienation, led to the current situation. He argued that he had tried to renew contact over the years, but the mother refused to cooperate, "pulling the strings" to thwart his efforts and instructing the girls on how to behave. He asserted that it was unjust to force him to pay child support while being prevented from having a relationship with his daughters.
In response, the mother argued that the lawsuit was vexatious, harassing, and constituted an abuse of the legal process, reiterating that the blame for the long-term disconnect lay entirely with her former partner.
The Court's Decisive Ruling
Judge Paperny was unimpressed by the father's claims, concluding that the father himself had initiated the disconnect when he left the family home without making any meaningful effort to maintain a bond.
Judge Paperny wrote in his ruling:
"The overall data presents a picture in which the father failed to fulfill his duty and left the entire burden on the mother, starting many years ago, shortly after their separation. The father abandoned the relationship with his daughters for years and failed to prove that he took any steps to address or improve the disconnect. If he truly wanted to renew the relationship, he would have filed for the enforcement of visitation rights rather than waiting so many years."
The court clarified that neither of the daughters could be classified as "rebellious" in a manner that would justify canceling child support. Furthermore, the judge ruled that no incitement by the mother had been proven.
The father's conduct—filing a lawsuit to cancel child support while already refusing to pay and accumulating hundreds of thousands of shekels in debt—was heavily criticized. The court emphasized that a parent seeking to modify or cancel child support must approach the court with "clean hands" and in good faith, which was not the case here.
The lawsuit was dismissed, the child support obligations remain in place, and the father was ordered to pay the mother's legal fees and court costs totaling 25,000 NIS.
