GLASTONBURY, CONNECTICUT · FAMILY LAW + FAMILY-VIOLENCE DEFENSE
When a family court order is ignored, the motion for contempt is the main tool for doing something about it. It is also more demanding than people expect, and that cuts both ways.
A motion for contempt is filed under Practice Book §25-27, and it is not an enforcement formality. The court must decide whether the underlying order was sufficiently definite, whether non-compliance occurred, and whether the failure to comply was wilful.
You cannot be held in contempt for violating an order that did not plainly require the thing now claimed. Family judgments are often less precise than anyone remembers, and genuine ambiguity defeats a contempt finding.
A good-faith dispute about what the order meant, a legitimate misunderstanding, or an inability to comply through no fault of your own can each excuse the failure.
Connecticut requires more than the ordinary civil standard for indirect civil contempt, as the Connecticut Supreme Court held in Brody v. Brody, 315 Conn. 300 (2015). That is a real protection, and it is frequently overlooked by people who assume non-payment alone decides it.
Civil contempt in Connecticut is remedial rather than punitive. Under Practice Book §1-21A, the sanctions are meant to coerce compliance and to compensate the other party for what the non-compliance cost them — not to punish.
In practice that means a finding of the amount owed reduced to a judgment, a payment schedule on arrears, income withholding, fines, orders designed to secure compliance going forward, and attorney’s fees under C.G.S. §46b-87.
Section 46b-87 permits a fee award to the party who prevails. If you file and succeed, the other side may be ordered to pay your fees. If you file and lose, you may be ordered to pay theirs.
That symmetry is worth weighing before filing a motion on thin facts.
It is available and it is uncommon.
Confinement for civil contempt is coercive, which is why it carries a purge condition — something you can do to secure release, typically payment or performance. That condition has to be something you actually have the present ability to meet. A person who genuinely cannot pay is not supposed to be jailed for being unable to pay.
Where incarceration is a possibility, the responding party has the right to counsel under Practice Book §25-63, including appointed counsel if they cannot afford one.
Ask three questions. Is the order clear enough to enforce as written? Can you show the other side had the ability to comply? And is there a cheaper route — a letter, a clarification motion, or a modification — that gets the same result?
Sometimes the answer is that the order itself needs fixing rather than enforcing.
Served with a contempt motion? What the other side has to prove, what defenses exist, and why you may also need to file a modification.
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What to do when child support is not being paid in Connecticut — contempt, income withholding, and which court hears your case.
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When a Connecticut family court order is ignored — motions for contempt, income withholding, and what happens if you have been served with one.
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Every case starts with a conversation about what you’re facing and what it would take to handle it.
