West Virginia Code 48-16-313 – Costs and fees
(a) The petitioner may not be required to pay a filing fee or other costs.
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 48-16-313
- Foreign country: means a country, including a political subdivision thereof, other than the United States, that authorizes the issuance of support orders and:
(A) Which has been declared under the law of the United States to be a foreign reciprocating country. See West Virginia Code 48-16-102
- Law: includes decisional and statutory law and rules and regulations having the force of law. See West Virginia Code 48-16-102
- Obligee: means :
(A) An individual to whom a duty of support is or is alleged to be owed or in whose favor a support order or a judgment determining parentage of a child has been issued. See West Virginia Code 48-16-102
- Obligor: means an individual or the estate of a decedent that:
(A) Owes or is alleged to owe a duty of support. See West Virginia Code 48-16-102
- Responding state: means a state in which a petition or comparable pleading for support or to determine parentage of a child is filed or to which a petition or comparable pleading is forwarded for filing from another state or a foreign country. See West Virginia Code 48-16-102
- Responding tribunal: means the authorized tribunal in a responding state or foreign country. See West Virginia Code 48-16-102
- State: means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands or any territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. See West Virginia Code 48-16-102
- Support enforcement agency: means a public official or governmental entity, or private agency authorized to:
(A) Seek enforcement of support orders or laws relating to the duty of support. See West Virginia Code 48-16-102
- Support order: means a judgment, decree, order, decision or directive, whether temporary, final or subject to modification, issued in a state or foreign country for the benefit of a child, a spouse or a former spouse which provides for monetary support, health care, arrearages, retroactive support or reimbursement for financial assistance provided to an individual obligee in place of child support. See West Virginia Code 48-16-102
- Tribunal: means a court, administrative agency or quasi-judicial entity authorized to establish, enforce or modify support orders or to determine parentage of a child. See West Virginia Code 48-16-102
(b) If an obligee prevails, a responding tribunal of this state may assess against an obligor filing fees, reasonable attorney's fee, other costs and necessary travel and other reasonable expenses incurred by the obligee and the obligee's witnesses. The tribunal may not assess fees, costs or expenses against the obligee or the support enforcement agency of either the initiating or the responding state or foreign country, except as provided by other law. Attorney's fees may be taxed as costs and may be ordered paid directly to the attorney, who may enforce the order in the attorney's own name. Payment of support owed to the obligee has priority over fees, costs and expenses.
(c) The tribunal shall order the payment of costs and reasonable attorney's fees if it determines that a hearing was requested primarily for delay. In a proceeding under part VI [§§48-16-601 through 48-16-615], a hearing is presumed to have been requested primarily for delay if a registered support order is confirmed or enforced without change.