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Fam. Code, § 5238 · Article 2. General Provisions

Fam. Code, § 5238

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) Where an assignment order or assignment orders include both current support and payments towards the liquidation of arrearages, priority shall be given first to the current child support obligation, then the current spousal support obligation, and thereafter to the liquidation of child and then spousal support arrearages.

(b) Where there are multiple assignment orders for the same employee, the employer shall prorate the withheld payments as follows:

(1) If the obligor has more than one assignment for support, the employer shall add together the amount of support due for each assignment.

(2) If 50 percent of the obligor’s net disposable earnings will not pay in full all of the assignments for support, the employer shall prorate it first among all of the current support assignments in the same proportion that each assignment bears to the total current support owed.

(3) The employer shall apply any remainder to the assignments for arrearage support in the same proportion that each assignment bears to the total arrearage owed.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 1997, Ch. 599, Sec. 29. Effective January 1, 1998.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=FAM&sectionNum=5238.
Text hash
sha256 eaaba6f51a9cf33e6605b22048d08c0856f506289a0cc15558ef1e585c671bde
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.