Case ID: va_266/html/0001-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Social Services, Division of Child Support Enforcement, ex rel. Spotsylvania County Department of Social Services v. Katheryn R. Fletcher
    Record No. 021186
    June 6, 2003
    Present: All the Justices
    
      Gary P. Webb, Special Counsel (Jerry W. Kilgore, Attorney General; David E. Johnson, Deputy Attorney General; Craig M. Burshem, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Beth J. Edwards, Regional Special Counsel, on briefs), for appellant.
    
      
      Eric H. Feiler (Edward J. Fuhr; Stacy M. Colvin; Terence J. Rasmussen; Hunton & Williams, on brief), for appellee.
   PER CURIAM

In this appeal, the Court reviews a judgment of the Court of Appeals of Virginia affirming a circuit court judgment in which the circuit court determined that a parent whose “residual parental rights” had been terminated no longer owed a duty of support to her minor children. Commonwealth v. Fletcher, 38 Va. App. 107, 562 S.E.2d 327 (2002).

The Court of Appeals concluded that the termination of parental rights includes “the termination of parental responsibilities as well as any correlative rights.” Id. at 112, 562 S.E.2d at 329. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals held that a parent whose parental rights have been terminated no longer has a legal duty to support his or her child because the parent has become a “legal stranger” to that child. Id.

For the reasons set forth in the opinion of the Court of Appeals, we will affirm that Court’s judgment.

Affirmed.