By Judge Audrey Headrick, Chattanooga

How many times during a settlement approval have you heard the judge ask employees to confirm that they don’t have an outstanding child support lien? Probably often, right? Everyone chuckles when I ask employees in their fifties or older. However, I once had an employee in his seventies with a significant child support lien.

Reflecting on these reactions prompted me to research this topic. I learned a lot, including that August is National Child Support Awareness Month.

Former President Bill Clinton proclaimed it so in 1995. Since then, every summer, child support organizations recognize and celebrate the vital role of child support and the social-service communities that provide financial aid to American families.

We tend to think of child support as a family-law matter only. That’s partly true. If you’re having trouble receiving court-ordered child support, you need to work with state and local authorities.

However, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is also involved on the policy level, with its Office of Child Support Enforcement. That agency doesn’t manage individual cases. Instead, they partner with federal, state, tribal and local governments and others to promote parental responsibility, so that children receive support from both parents, even when they live in separate households.

They also collect data. Per their website, in fiscal year 2025:

• $29.3 billion (with a b) was collected in child support.
• 97% of that went directly to families; the remaining 3% reimbursed public assistance paid on behalf of children.
• Roughly 12 million children were the beneficiaries of these dollars.
• One in six children in the U.S. is the beneficiary of a child support order.

Anecdotally, we probably all know someone—family, friends or maybe even you—who isn’t receiving child support. Families struggle as a result.

Indeed, it’s hard to argue with the premise that parents should support their minor children, as a moral obligation but also as public policy.

As to how this plays out in the Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims, our settlement agreement template contains the affirmation that the employee is not subject to any child support liens. However, sometimes the employee surprises everyone and admits to having one or more. Even when the employee is represented, I have this happen multiple times throughout the year.

We ask about child support liens because the law requires that past-due child support must be paid first out of lump-sum awards.

Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-223(c) (2025) requires that “the department of human services shall have a lien on any lump-sum settlements for the collection of current or overdue [child] support.” This means that not only will the Tennessee Department of Human Services collect an agreed-upon, perhaps negotiated, amount owed from a settlement, but also that the Court is required to deduct the child support owed from any lump sum awarded in a compensation order.

Aside from the obvious benefit to the children, it also benefits employees to pay a child support lien from a workers’ compensation settlement. I’ve had some cases where an employee didn’t want to proceed with settling a case solely because they don’t want to pay the lien.

Tennessee Code Annotated section 36-5-101 spells out the consequences to payors about why they should want to satisfy their child support liens:

• Interest can accrue on unpaid child support;
• Income tax refunds can be intercepted; and,
• An employee’s driver’s license can be revoked, denied, or suspended.

So, attorneys, before you appear for a settlement approval, confirm with the employee that no outstanding child support lien exists. Things occasionally slip through the cracks, and employers/insurance carriers aren’t always put on notice about the lien. 

However, when an attorney/employer/insurance carrier knows of a child support lien but still transfers the funds directly to the employee, that makes them liable for “the overdue support, penalties, costs or fees” to the Department of Human Services’ Tennessee Child Support Enforcement System. Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 1240-02-05-.03 (2010). 

Keep in mind that submitting documentation of the lien amount helps to avoid any delay at the settlement approval.

Judges and lawyers alike make a difference for these families and children by asking simple questions. Keep up the good work.