How a Georgia contempt case works

Contempt is how you enforce an existing order when the other person refuses to follow it. The court can compel compliance, and for a willful refusal it can order jail until the person complies, a purgeable and coercive remedy, so no one can promise that the other side will be jailed (O.C.G.A. 19-6-28).

Contempt is filed in the same court that entered the order you are enforcing, the court that issued your order, not necessarily where either of you lives now (O.C.G.A. 19-9-23(b)). If your order came from the Superior Court of Gwinnett
County, that is where your contempt case belongs; if it came from another county, that is where it belongs.

If circumstances have genuinely changed, the proper step in Georgia is generally a modification, not contempt, because contempt enforces an existing order rather than changing it (O.C.G.A. 19-9-23(b), 19-9-3), so a parent in Sandersville whose situation has changed typically files for modification.

A contempt action in Georgia enforces an existing custody order rather than creating new terms (O.C.G.A. 19-9-23(b)), so a parent in Sandersville uses contempt to hold the other parent to the current custody arrangement.

Contempt also enforces the terms of a Georgia divorce decree, such as support, property, and parenting obligations (O.C.G.A. 19-6-28), so a party in Sandersville can use contempt to enforce what the divorce ordered.