CHAPTER 254
AN ACT TO AMEND SECTION 507, TITLE 13, DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO ATTACHMENT OF SALARY OR WAGES IN CHILD SUPPORT CASES.
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Delaware:
Section 1. The provisions following the end of the first sentence in Subsection (c) of Section 507, Title 13, Delaware Code, are repealed and the following added in their place:
(d) In accordance with the foregoing and in order to enforce the court's orders, the court shall have the right to attach the salary or wages of any defendant against whom an order has been entered. Such wage attachment shall be made by the court only in cases where there is a child whom the defendant is legally bound to support. Not more than 25% of the defendant's "net" or "take home" salary or wages shall be attached in any case where there is not more than one child whom the defendant is legally bound to support; and not more than an additional 5% of the defendant's "net" or "take home" salary or wages shall be attached for each additional child whom the defendant is legally bound to support.
(e) It is specifically understood that any wage attachment made under this statute shall have initial priority notwithstanding the provisions of 10 Delaware Code, section 4913 or any other statute to the contrary, and that any attachment called for in this statute is not subject to the exemptions or limitations of 10 Delaware Code, section 4931.
(f) In the case of any wage attachment made under this section any employer of the defendant, upon receipt of a certified copy of the wage assignment from the court, shall periodically deduct the sum certain, or the fixed percentage stated therein, as the case may be, from the "net" or "take home" wages due the defendant-employee, and periodically mail or otherwise deliver the wage or salary deduction to the court, and he shall continue to make the periodic wage deductions and mail or otherwise deliver the periodic payments to the court for so long as the defendant shall remain employed by said employer, unless the court prior to, the termination of such employment, otherwise orders. The remittance in each of these cases made by the employer to the court shall be made by check or money order payable to "The (here naming the court imposing the order) Court," and in every case the employer shall so identify each remittance as to enable the court to make proper distribution thereof.
(g) In the event that any employer dismisses, terminates or causes the termination of any defendant's employment as a result of an attachment under this statute, such employer shall be guilty of a criminal offense and shall be subject to a fine for the first offense of not more than $1,000 or ninety days in jail, or both; and for each subsequent offense shall be subject to a fine of not more than $5,000 or one year in jail, or both.
Approved July 10, 1969.