A man in Prince George’s County, Maryland, said a common traffic stop turned into his car being impounded and his driver’s license being wrongly suspended over child support payments. Now, he’s filing a lawsuit against the state.
He said he was going to work one day and was near the Pentagon in December 2024 and got pulled over for a traffic violation. That’s when police told him his license had been suspended.
He found out later that it was actually suspended three months earlier.
“Still to this day, it affected me and my family in a lot of different ways,” said Dawron Mason, a father of four who lives in Oxon Hill. “It hit me where it hurt.”
Mason added that he believed it put his job at risk because he needed the car for work as a maintenance technician.
“I actually use that vehicle for emergency calls,” Mason said.
He owed about $700 in back pay child support but was told earlier that year that, because he now had sole custody of his child, his license wouldn’t be suspended.
His attorney, Stacy Bensky, a senior staff attorney with Maryland Legal Aid, said this was an error in the system.
“My goal, once I realized how big this problem is, would be to change the system instead of just, one individual person at a time,” Bensky said.
She said in 2023, more than 20,000 Marylanders have had their licenses suspended for failure to pay child support. Bensky believes one of the major issues is that they don’t know they have a right to challenge it.
“The state cannot take your driver’s license without due process, meaning you have to have notice and the opportunity for a hearing,” she said.
She said in the most recent year that the data is available, which is 2023, only around 35 people out of the more than 20,000 people who had their licenses suspended because of child support payment requested a hearing to dispute it.
A lawsuit against the state of Maryland was filed in Baltimore City Circuit Court by Maryland Legal Aid. There are four plaintiffs named in the case who had their licenses suspended over child support payments.
“It is a statewide problem. It’s pervasive,” Bensky said.
She said the fact that the system is automated makes it difficult for her clients.
“Even if they’re exempt under the law, it just operates as if those exemptions don’t exist,” Bensky said.
In a statement, Maryland’s Department of Human Services told WTOP it could not comment on this “case due to ongoing litigation.”
WTOP has reached out to the Maryland Office of the Attorney General for comment on the case.
wtop.com
He said he was going to work one day and was near the Pentagon in December 2024 and got pulled over for a traffic violation. That’s when police told him his license had been suspended.
He found out later that it was actually suspended three months earlier.
“Still to this day, it affected me and my family in a lot of different ways,” said Dawron Mason, a father of four who lives in Oxon Hill. “It hit me where it hurt.”
Mason added that he believed it put his job at risk because he needed the car for work as a maintenance technician.
“I actually use that vehicle for emergency calls,” Mason said.
He owed about $700 in back pay child support but was told earlier that year that, because he now had sole custody of his child, his license wouldn’t be suspended.
His attorney, Stacy Bensky, a senior staff attorney with Maryland Legal Aid, said this was an error in the system.
“My goal, once I realized how big this problem is, would be to change the system instead of just, one individual person at a time,” Bensky said.
She said in 2023, more than 20,000 Marylanders have had their licenses suspended for failure to pay child support. Bensky believes one of the major issues is that they don’t know they have a right to challenge it.
“The state cannot take your driver’s license without due process, meaning you have to have notice and the opportunity for a hearing,” she said.
She said in the most recent year that the data is available, which is 2023, only around 35 people out of the more than 20,000 people who had their licenses suspended because of child support payment requested a hearing to dispute it.
A lawsuit against the state of Maryland was filed in Baltimore City Circuit Court by Maryland Legal Aid. There are four plaintiffs named in the case who had their licenses suspended over child support payments.
“It is a statewide problem. It’s pervasive,” Bensky said.
She said the fact that the system is automated makes it difficult for her clients.
“Even if they’re exempt under the law, it just operates as if those exemptions don’t exist,” Bensky said.
In a statement, Maryland’s Department of Human Services told WTOP it could not comment on this “case due to ongoing litigation.”
WTOP has reached out to the Maryland Office of the Attorney General for comment on the case.
Lawsuit filed against Maryland claims thousands of driver’s licenses are wrongly suspended over child support payments - WTOP News
A man in Prince George’s County, Maryland, says a common traffic stop turned into his car being impounded and his driver’s license being wrongly suspended over child support payments. Now, he’s suing the state.
wtop.com