LEGAL OBLIGATIONS TO ADULT CHILDREN

Recently, Certified Family Law Specialist Garrison “Bud” Klueck appeared on the “San Diego Living” TV program, seen locally on FOX Channel 6 and shared some insight into how and when a parent’s legal obligation to their adult children ends.

QUESTION - Certified Family Law Specialist Garrison Klueck is here to discuss when and how a parent’s legal obligation to adult children ends.

ATTORNEY KLUECK'S ANSWER - We are talking mainly about child support when we discuss parents’ legal obligations to their children. If the child is disabled, particularly if the child has mental challenges, a parent’s obligation to pay guideline child support may extend well into their adulthood, perhaps for the rest of the party’s life. There was a Court of Appeals case, a few years ago, concerning an adult disabled child and guideline child support. In that case, the mother had died and left a trust to pay so much per month for the child’s care. Two of the variables in the California mathematical child support guideline calculation are Mom’s income and Dad’s income. Dad told the court that since Mom is deceased, and therefore can have no “income”, guideline child support ends. The court in that case ruled that the monthly “allowance” from the trust set up by Mom could be used as Mom’s income, along with Dad’s actual income, to calculate the support amount. So in that particular case, a parent’s obligation to support their adult-disabled child extended beyond the actual death of a parent.

QUESTION - The majority of children are not disabled. Absent some kind of disability, does a parent’s obligation to support the child end when the child turns eighteen?

ATTORNEY KLUECK'S ANSWER - Yes, if the child is no longer a full-time high school student. So if the child has graduated from high school already or has dropped out, child support ends at eighteen. But if the child is a full-time high school student, child support can extend beyond their eighteenth birthday up to as late as their nineteenth birthday. The latest that a state-imposed child support obligation can extend is the month of the child’s nineteenth birthday. Excepting, of course, disabled children as we previously discussed.

QUESTION - To clarify then, it isn’t simply that the child turns eighteen and child support ends?

ATTORNEY KLUECK'S ANSWER - No, there are three events which potentially could end, by operation of law, child support. Those three events are: the month the child turns eighteen, if the child is already a high school graduate or drop-out; the month the child graduates from high school, if the child turned eighteen prior to graduation; or, the month the child turns nineteen if the child has remained a full-time high school student between the eighteenth birthday and the nineteenth birthday.

QUESTION - You keep saying “the month the child turns eighteen” or “the month the child turns nineteen.” Doesn’t the child support end on the child’s birthday?

ATTORNEY KLUECK'S ANSWER - No, the court system doesn’t pro rate months. The person paying child support has to pay child support for the full month even though the birthday may have been on the second of the month or the high school graduation day on the third of the month. The full month will be charged; but the payor can know that the last day of the month will be the last day that he or she has to pay child support by operation of law.

QUESTION - You keep using the phrase “by operation of law.” Is there another way that child support can end?

ATTORNEY KLUECK'S ANSWER - Well, the real question is whether there is way that child support can continue, beyond the age of nineteen, if the child is not disabled and the answer is that there is. Parties not infrequently agree, in their marital settlement agreements, to have the Judge order college-age child support. Some states even have college-age child support by law. There have been proposals for California to adopt college-age child support, but they have never passed the legislature. One of our near-by sister states, Oregon, has a complicated system of college-age child support that demands that the child go to an accredited college, have a certain grade point average, and then Mom has some obligation, Dad has some obligation and the child herself has some obligation. I understand New York has child support until age twenty-one, period. But in California, child support ends at nineteen, by operation of law or automatically--unless the parties contract differently in their divorce agreement.

QUESTION - If the parties do contract for college-age child support, will the Judge go along with that?

ATTORNEY KLUECK'S ANSWER - Yes, if Mom and Dad contract for college-age child support in their marital settlement agreement, that agreement ordinarily gets incorporated, or rolled, into a Superior Court Judgment that is a court order and is enforceable, like any other Superior Court Judgment--including by wage assignment or garnishments or by contempt of court actions.

QUESTION - Speaking of wage garnishments, once child support ends, does the wage garnishment end also?

ATTORNEY KLUECK'S ANSWER - That is a good question because the answer is no. Nothing much happens automatically at court. Although having the child turn eighteen or nineteen gives the payor the right to end any wage assignment associated with that child, the ending of the wage assignment does not happen automatically. You have to get a new court order that recognizes that the payor no longer has an obligation to pay for that child. You need a new court order and new garnishment paperwork to get the matter fixed.

QUESTION - If you, or someone you know, has any further questions, about child support, or any of the hundreds of other issues in family law cases, you can contact Attorney Klueck at (619) 448-6500 or through his website at www.familylawsandiego.com.