Justices: Parent lacks right to collection aid By David G. Savage Los Angeles Times   WASHINGTON, DC - In a setback for parents seeking child support, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that the United States' welfare law does not give them a ``federal right'' to government help in obtaining payments they are owed. Since 1975, Congress has paid states and counties to collect child support from so-called "deadbeat'' parents -- most of them fathers. But nationwide, regular payments are being collected in only 18 percent of the cases. Two years ago, a U.S. Appeals Court for the West Coast cleared the way for a class-action suit on behalf of 300,000 Arizona parents demanding improvements in a foundering program. The understaffed Arizona state agency was then collecting money in less than 5 percent of its cases. Judge Stephen Reinhardt of Los Angeles, writing for the Appeals Court, said the parents had documented ``a range of administrative abuses extending from simple incompetence and bureaucratic bungling to shockingly callous indifference.'' In a typical example, one mother said she had supplied the state agency with her ex-husband's home and work-site address for month after month, yet failed to obtain a single child-support payment for seven years. If Reinhardt's opinion had been affirmed, it probably would have spurred similar lawsuits. But in a unanimous decision Monday, the Supreme Court threw out most of the Arizona lawsuit and said the Child Support Enforcement Act did not ``create an individual entitlement to services.'' Congress pays two-thirds of the cost of the program, and it in turn requires states to operate their programs in ``substantial compliance'' with goals set in Washington. While the decision limits when a person can sue a government agency over child-support collections, Leora Gershenzon, a specialist in that subject with the National Center for Youth Law in San Francisco, was upbeat. ``I think actually the ruling is very good,'' she said. It does not, as some had feared, leave absolutely no legal redress for those who, owed support, feel officials aren't doing enough to collect it. Mercury News Staff Writer Steve Johnson contributed to this report.