In the Interest of C.S.S., 03-25-00258-CV, April 22, 2026.
On appeal from 264th District Court of Bell County
Synopsis
The Third Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of the obligor’s motion to terminate child-support withholding because the record supported ongoing arrearages and accrued interest, even though current support had long since ended. For Texas family-law litigators, the opinion is a pointed reminder that withholding may continue to collect arrears and interest, and that an obligor who attacks the OAG’s accounting must actually prove the account is wrong.
Relevance to Family Law
This opinion matters well beyond stand-alone child-support enforcement. In divorce, SAPCR, modification, and post-judgment enforcement practice, lawyers routinely encounter clients who assume that support withholding must end once the child ages out, marries, or otherwise ceases to be entitled to current support. This case reinforces that the end of current support does not terminate collection of arrearages or statutory/common-law interest, and that those amounts remain enforceable through income withholding. It also has practical implications in property and settlement litigation: alleged “overpayment” arguments, stale accounting objections, and attacks on historical OAG ledgers will fail without a developed evidentiary record and targeted appellate complaints to findings of fact.
Case Summary
Fact Summary
The underlying support obligation traces back decades. In 1985, Raymond DeMeritt was adjudicated the father of C.S.S. and ordered to pay monthly child support of $175 through the Office of the Attorney General. In 1989, the OAG initiated interstate enforcement proceedings, and in 1990 a California court entered an order requiring payment of $175 in current monthly support and $50 per month toward a $7,250 arrearage judgment.
In 2024, DeMeritt filed a petition and later a motion seeking to terminate child support and wage withholding, asserting that the child was married and that he had already satisfied his support obligation. He relied in part on an OAG financial activity report and argued that the agency had improperly allocated payments and effectively treated interest as principal. His core position was numerical: he claimed his total obligation was approximately $38,000, that he had paid more than $111,000—or by hearing, about $115,000—and that it was therefore impossible for any arrears to remain.
The OAG responded with the historical orders and a financial activity report reflecting that, as of January 2025, DeMeritt still owed more than $30,000. The agency relied on Family Code provisions authorizing collection of arrearages and accrued interest through withholding, including after current support ends, and it addressed the pre-2002 interest framework applicable to this older support order. At the evidentiary hearing, DeMeritt testified to overpayment and challenged the accounting, while the child’s mother testified that he had remained in arrears for years. The trial court denied relief and later entered findings of fact and conclusions of law. On appeal, those findings were not specifically challenged.
Issues Decided
The court decided, in substance, the following issues:
- Whether the trial court abused its discretion by denying the obligor’s motion to terminate child-support and wage withholding.
- Whether the record supported a determination that arrearages and accrued interest remained unpaid.
- Whether income withholding may continue after current child support has ended when arrearages and interest remain due.
- Whether the obligor’s attacks on the OAG’s accounting and allocation of payments defeated continued withholding.
- Whether unchallenged findings of fact and the OAG’s financial records were sufficient to support the order.
Rules Applied
The court’s analysis rested on a familiar but important set of family-law and appellate rules.
- Orders denying termination or withdrawal of withholding are reviewed for abuse of discretion.
- In family-law appeals, evidentiary sufficiency overlaps with abuse-of-discretion review; sufficiency is a component of whether the court had enough information to exercise discretion and whether it misapplied that discretion.
- Unchallenged findings of fact are binding on appeal unless the contrary is established as a matter of law or there is no evidence to support them.
- Under Texas Family Code section 157.267, accrued interest is part of the child-support obligation and may be enforced by any means available to collect child support.
- Under section 158.004, withholding may continue for arrearages, including accrued interest, after current support is no longer owed.
- Under section 158.502 and related provisions, the OAG may issue administrative writs of withholding to collect outstanding child-support arrearages.
- For older support orders, section 157.265 and the pre-2002 legal framework govern how interest on arrearages is treated.
- The court also referenced authority recognizing the evidentiary use of OAG financial activity reports to prove arrearages and authority placing the burden on an obligor seeking to terminate withholding to show that no arrears remain.
The opinion’s cited authorities include Kazmi v. Kazmi, McGalliard v. Kuhlmann, Tenaska Energy, Inc. v. Ponderosa Pine Energy, LLC, In re M.C.C., Office of Att’y Gen. v. Lee, and intermediate-appellate decisions addressing proof of arrearages and motions to terminate withholding.
Application
The Third Court’s reasoning was straightforward and strategically significant. DeMeritt’s appellate presentation depended on the premise that he had paid more than enough to extinguish a finite support obligation. But the record the trial court had before it showed something different: an original support order, a later arrearage judgment, OAG financial records showing a current balance, and a legal framework under which accrued interest remained part of the child-support obligation.
The court gave decisive weight to two procedural realities. First, the trial court had entered findings of fact, and DeMeritt did not specifically challenge them. That sharply narrowed appellate room to maneuver. Once those findings were left standing, the court of appeals treated them as binding so long as some evidence supported them. Second, the OAG’s financial activity report constituted affirmative record evidence of the arrearage balance, while DeMeritt’s theory of overpayment was largely conclusory and unsupported by competent record proof tying his payment history to a legally correct payoff calculation.
The court also rejected DeMeritt’s reliance on a 2009 nonsuit in an earlier enforcement proceeding. In the panel’s view, the cited statutes did not support the proposition that nonsuiting one enforcement action eliminated the State’s authority to continue withholding on unpaid arrearages and interest. Put differently, the procedural death of one enforcement effort did not amount to substantive satisfaction of the debt.
Just as important, the court treated the case as a burden-of-proof problem. Because DeMeritt was the party asking the court to terminate withholding and disputing the OAG’s ledger, he bore the burden to prove that no arrearages remained. The evidence he offered—essentially, his insistence that the mathematics made no sense—did not negate the OAG’s records or the legal accrual of interest on old arrears. On that record, the trial court had sufficient information to deny relief and did not act arbitrarily or without guiding principles.
Holding
The court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion to terminate child-support and wage withholding. The evidence, including the OAG’s financial activity report and the trial court’s unchallenged findings, supported the conclusion that DeMeritt still owed arrearages and accrued interest.
The court further held, in substance, that withholding may continue even after the underlying current-support obligation has ended if arrearages and interest remain unpaid. The fact that the child was no longer entitled to current support did not eliminate the enforceability of the unpaid balance.
The court also rejected the obligor’s arguments that a prior nonsuit in an enforcement action or his unsupported assertion of “overpayment” required termination of withholding. Without record proof rebutting the OAG’s accounting and the findings of fact, there was no basis to conclude the trial court erred.
Practical Application
For practitioners, this is a useful opinion to deploy when an obligor frames a termination-of-withholding motion as though it were self-proving once the child has aged out. It is not. If any arrearages or interest remain, continued withholding is still on the table, and the obligor bears a real evidentiary burden to show a zero balance.
For petitioner-side enforcement counsel, the opinion underscores the value of building a simple but disciplined record. Historical orders, the OAG financial activity report, and findings of fact may be enough if the opposing party offers only arithmetic rhetoric without a competent ledger analysis. This case is especially helpful where the support history spans multiple jurisdictions, old arrearage confirmations, or pre-2002 interest questions.
For defense-side family lawyers representing obligors, the lesson is equally sharp: do not file a termination motion based solely on gross dollars paid over time. That number is meaningless unless tied to the operative orders, periods of nonpayment, confirmed arrears, applicable interest law, credits, and allocation methodology. If you intend to challenge the OAG’s accounting, treat it like a forensic accounting dispute, not an equity argument.
The opinion also has settlement implications. In mediation or post-decree negotiation, parties sometimes assume that old child-support balances can be dismissed as administratively inflated or uncollectable. This case suggests the opposite. Where the OAG can produce a support history and the obligor cannot affirmatively disprove it, the arrearage claim remains highly leverageable. And on appeal, unchallenged findings can effectively end the case before the merits are ever meaningfully reached.
Checklists
Checklist for Opposing a Motion to Terminate Withholding
- Obtain and offer every operative support order, including interstate or URESA/UIFSA-related orders.
- Offer the OAG financial activity report or comparable arrearage records into the hearing record.
- Tie the current claimed balance to statutory authority allowing collection of arrears and interest through withholding.
- Address whether current support has ended, but clearly distinguish that issue from whether arrearages remain collectible.
- Request findings of fact and conclusions of law if the motion is denied and an appeal is likely.
- Ensure the record reflects any testimony explaining chronic arrearage history or nonpayment patterns.
Checklist for Seeking Termination of Withholding
- Do not assume that the end of current support means withholding must terminate.
- Reconstruct the payment history against the actual orders, not against an estimated “total obligation.”
- Separate principal child support, confirmed arrears, pre-judgment/post-judgment interest, and post-2002 interest accrual.
- Obtain the OAG ledger early and identify specific challenged entries, date ranges, and allocation errors.
- Present admissible evidence of credits, offsets, duplicate collections, or mathematical errors.
- Consider using a forensic accountant or a demonstrative payment summary if the support history is long or multi-jurisdictional.
- Specifically challenge adverse findings of fact on appeal; otherwise, they will likely bind the appellate court.
Checklist for Handling Legacy Arrearage Cases
- Determine whether the underlying order predates January 1, 2002.
- Identify whether arrearages were ever judicially confirmed and, if so, when.
- Research the applicable interest regime for the relevant time periods.
- Do not assume modern statutory interest rules cleanly apply to pre-2002 balances.
- Review whether the OAG’s interest methodology is consistent with governing law and controlling case authority.
- Anticipate arguments based on old enforcement filings, nonsuits, or dormant collection activity, and prepare to distinguish them from actual satisfaction of the debt.
Checklist for Preserving the Appellate Record
- Make a clean evidentiary record at the hearing; unsupported argument will not substitute for proof.
- Offer the documents you need the court of appeals to consider rather than merely referencing them.
- Request findings of fact and conclusions of law after an adverse ruling.
- File a notice of past-due findings if necessary to secure them.
- On appeal, specifically attack any findings that support the judgment.
- Frame sufficiency complaints within the abuse-of-discretion standard that governs family-law review.
Citation
In the Interest of C.S.S., No. 03-25-00258-CV, ___ S.W.3d ___, 2026 WL ___ (Tex. App.—Austin Apr. 22, 2026, no pet.) (mem. op.).
Full Opinion
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