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duchessusa

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Request info on a child who is now 29 years old, but is unmarried and has become disabled. What does this mean in terms of support? Who is responsible....... the state? the parents? How does this work?

Is she entitled to a Military I.D. card now? She has been legally declared disabled. We reside in CA and she is in WA.
 


I AM ALWAYS LIABLE

Senior Member
duchessusa said:
Request info on a child who is now 29 years old, but is unmarried and has become disabled. What does this mean in terms of support? Who is responsible....... the state? the parents? How does this work?

Is she entitled to a Military I.D. card now? She has been legally declared disabled. We reside in CA and she is in WA.

My response:

I don't know how it works in Washington State, but I imagine that in this regard, it's fairly similar to California. If the "adult, disabled, child" were here in California, an adult child is owed a California Family Code § 3910(a) support duty only if he or she is both "incapacitated from earning a living" and "without sufficient means" for the rest of his / her life. Recognizing that the statutory purpose is to protect the public from the burden of supporting a person whose parents are able to do so, the question of "sufficient means" is to be resolved in terms of the likelihood the child will become a public charge. [Marriage of Drake (1997) 53 Cal.App.4th 1139, 1154, 62 Cal.Rptr.2d 466, 476--"parent's duty to support an adult child does not arise only when the child would otherwise be 'turned into the street'"]

California cases conclude a child is "incapacitated from earning a living" for § 3910(a) support purposes only upon proof of a mental or physical disability preventing the child from being able to work; or, at least proof of inability to find a job due to factors beyond the child's control. [Jones v. Jones (1986) 179 Cal.App.3d 1011, 1014-1015, 225 Cal.Rptr. 95, 97; see Marriage of Drake, supra (chronic paranoid schizophrenia); Chun v. Chun, supra ("emotionally disabled" adult child with 12-year-old maturity level); Farber v. Olkon (1953) 40 Cal.2d 503, 254 P.2d 520 (mentally ill); Woolams v. Woolams (1952) 115 Cal.App.2d 1, 251 P.2d 392 (paralysis); and cases cited in Rebensdorf II v. Rebensdorf (1985) 169 Cal.App.3d 138, 146, 215 Cal.Rptr. 76, 80-81 (J. Franson dissent. opn.)]

Inability to pay for college education not enough: An adult child unable to pay for a college education without the parents' help is not, by that fact alone, "incapacitated from earning a living" and "without sufficient means" so as to trigger a parental support obligation under § 3910(a). Presently, there is no statutory authority by which adult children--who are not physically or mentally disabled--can compel their parents to pay for their college education. [Jones v. Jones, supra] (However, a parent's payment of an adult child's college expenses--albeit without legal obligation to do so--can be considered in setting spousal support. See, e.g., Marriage of Epstein (1979) 24 Cal.3d 76, 90, 154 Cal.Rptr. 413, 422; Marriage of Paul (1985) 173 Cal.App.3d 913, 919-920, 219 Cal.Rptr. 318, 321-322)

Good luck to you.

IAAL
 

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