Title: LOY A. JENNINGS v. ROBERT D. JENNINGS

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

LOY A. JENNINGS v. ROBERT D. JENNINGS1989 WY 212783 P.2d 178Case Number: 89-107Decided: 11/29/1989Supreme Court of Wyoming
LOY A. JENNINGS, 
APPELLANT (DEFENDANT),

v.

ROBERT D. JENNINGS, 
APPELLEE (PLAINTIFF).

Appeal from the District 
Court, SheridanCounty, James N. Wolfe, 
J.

Richard M. 
Davis, Jr. of Burgess & Davis, Sheridan, for appellant.

Charles R. Hart, 
Sheridan, for 
appellee.

Before CARDINE, C.J., and THOMAS, URBIGKIT, MACY 
and GOLDEN, JJ.

CARDINE, Chief 
Justice.

[¶1.]     Appellant, Loy A. 
Jennings, seeks child support from appellee, Robert D. Jennings, for a child who 
has reached the age of majority. The district court denied her petition for 
modification of the divorce decree. She identifies the issue 
as:

"The sole issue before 
the Court is whether the District Court erred in finding that it lacked 
jurisdiction to enter an Order providing for support for a minor child in a 
divorce action after that child attained the age of 
majority."

[¶2.]     Appellee identifies the 
issue as:

"[W]hether the District 
Court erred in finding that it lacked jurisdiction to enter an Order providing 
support for a non-disabled adult child based upon a post divorce modification 
petition filed after the child attained the age of 
majority."

[¶3.]     We 
affirm.

FACTS

[¶4.]     Robert and Loy Jennings 
were divorced on April 6, 1987. Under the divorce settlement, Loy obtained 
custody of the couple's two children, and Robert was required to pay child 
support for each child until that child became emancipated. The parties' 
agreement, which was incorporated into the final divorce decree, defined 
emancipation as occurring when a child either reaches the age of 19, marries, 
dies or enters into the United States armed forces. 
Wyoming law recognizes emancipation when a 
person reaches the age of 19, marries, or enters the United States 
military. Additionally, a 17-year-old minor may apply for emancipation provided 
he is willingly living separate and apart from his parents with at least his 
parents' acquiescence, is managing his own financial affairs, and has a legal 
means of income. See W.S. 14-1-101 through -206.

[¶5.]     During August 1988, the 
Fourth Judicial District Court of Wyoming placed Christopher, the child whose 
support is at issue here, on probation after a guilty plea to a criminal charge. 
Christopher had been charged as an adult. The terms of Christopher's probation 
required that he live with his mother. On October 28, 1988, he attained the age 
of 19 years.

[¶6.]     During November 1988, 
Robert petitioned the district court to modify the divorce decree to terminate 
his child support obligations. Christopher's attainment of age 19, in part, 
prompted the petition. Loy counter-petitioned for modification of the divorce 
decree extending Robert's child support obligations for Christopher during the 
time Christopher remained on probation and lived with Loy. The district court 
denied Loy's petition, noting that Robert had no legal obligation to support his 
son beyond age 19 years.

DISCUSSION

[¶7.]     W.S. 20-2-113(a) (1988 
Cum.Supp.) gave a district court continuing jurisdiction over matters involving 
child custody and support arising out of divorce by providing in pertinent part 
as follows:

"In granting a divorce * 
* * the court may make such disposition of the children as appears most 
expedient and beneficial for the well-being of the children. * * * On petition 
of either of the parents, the court may revise the decree concerning the care, 
custody, visitation and maintenance of the children * * 
*."

The legislature 
revised this statute in 1989 to clarify this continuing jurisdiction. See W.S. 
20-2-113. In Kamp v. Kamp, 640 P.2d 48 (Wyo. 1982), we held that the language of this 
statute did not necessarily limit its applicability to minor children of 
divorced parents. 640 P.2d  at 50-51.

[¶8.]     The Kamp case concerned 
the obligation of a divorced father to provide support for a child so severely 
disabled that she required around-the-clock attention. Id. at 49. The child in 
Kamp suffered from severe mental deficiencies, cerebral palsy, and spastic 
paraplegia and was beyond the age of majority when the question arose. We held 
that the child fell "within the category of `children' with respect to whom the 
legislature intended the divorced parent would be called upon to support." 
Id. at 
51.

[¶9.]     Although we held in 
Kamp that W.S. 20-2-113(a) had broad application, we noted as well that its 
reach was not without limit. The circumstances in Kamp did not require us to 
determine that limit. 640 P.2d  at 51. Without disturbing the premise that "[t]he 
obligation to support such a child ceases only when the necessity for support 
ceases," id., we hold that the factual circumstances of this case fall beyond 
the limit where a parent is required to support a child.

[¶10.]  In the instant case, appellant and 
appellee agreed in their settlement that emancipation would terminate appellee's 
child support obligation. Such provisions are frequently found in divorce 
settlements, and their validity, here and in general, is beyond question. See 
Broyles v. Broyles, 711 P.2d 1119, 1126 (Wyo. 1985). The divorce decree incorporated 
this settlement agreement. When a decree incorporates a settlement agreement, we 
are reluctant to disturb the decree because doing so would infringe upon the 
freedom of contract, as well as concerns of finality. Parry v. Parry, 766 P.2d 1168, 1170 (Wyo. 1989). Therefore, when a decree for 
termination of support upon attaining the age of majority as provided in the 
parties' incorporated agreement is entered, the obligation to support terminates 
upon the date the age of majority is attained, except that there is a duty of 
parental support of a child beyond the age of majority in the case of a 
physically or mentally disabled child because the continuing disability prevents 
such a child from becoming emancipated. See Kamp, 640 P.2d  at 53 (Rooney, 
Justice, specially concurring). See Annotation, Postmajority Disability as 
Reviving Parental Duty to Support Child, 48 A.L.R.4th 919, 923 
(1986).

[¶11.]  In conclusion, appellant's reasons for 
allowing Christopher to live in her home, despite his attainment of the age of 
majority, are her own, and we laud her acceptance of a perceived moral duty as a 
parent. However, she was under no legal duty to provide a residence for 
Christopher. His living arrangement was a term of his probation imposed upon him 
as an adult. The court imposing Christopher's probation had no authority to 
require appellant to abide by its terms. She agreed to them of her own 
volition.

[¶12.]  Affirmed.

URBIGKIT, J., files a specially 
concurring opinion.

URBIGKIT, Justice, specially 
concurring.

[¶13.]  It is apparent from the text of the 
majority that this court now adopts from our earlier case of Kamp v. Kamp, 640 P.2d 48 (Wyo. 
1982) the special concurrence written by Justice Rooney and eschews the majority 
decision authored by Chief Justice Rose. I specially concur in present decision 
to deny the father's support obligation for his nineteen-year-old son by 
conclusion that on this subject judicial legislating should come to a present 
end. The legislature should urgently undertake to establish within this complex 
subject of parental responsibility for their children what that obligation 
should be for support and maintenance, if any, after their children have 
achieved the age of majority set by present law at 
nineteen.

[¶14.]  Candidly, I find an equal if not greater 
obligation and opportunity for consecration of parental responsibility in this 
case to benefit the nineteen-year-old son as compared with the devotion and 
abiding affection related by the mother, Marguerite, for her daughter, Marlana, 
in Kamp.

[¶15.]  I cannot accept the rather blase denial 
of parental obligation and opportunity for Christopher Jennings. This young man 
was clearly at the cross-roads of life and the trial court in criminal 
sentencing had already recognized in parole order how important completion of a 
high school education and his maintenance at the home of his parents might be 
for his future. At no time of parenting was the immediacy, difficulty and 
intensive challenge to be greater than at that time for Robert and Loy Jennings 
to their son Christopher.1 For Christopher, the year of 
continued education required by his parole order commenced in August 1988 before 
he had achieved adulthood and would have ended in May or June of 1989. What now 
may be the status about which this litigation is continued is certainly not to 
be revealed in present appellate file.

[¶16.]  What I see from Kamp - Jennings is total 
confusion that urgently seeks thoughtful legislative attention within its 
constitutional responsibility for the public well-being. The rules of 
responsibility of parents for their children should be set as a matter of 
statute and not ad hoc judicial reaction to individual cases. Now clouded and 
questioned are the general subjects of responsibility for post-majority advanced 
education, effectiveness of divorce separation agreements or decrees considering 
post-majority obligation to the litigants' children and the obligation, if any, 
of the parents following incapacitation of their children 
post-adulthood.

[¶17.]  The text of academic reviews and 
annotation analyses broadly consider the scope of society's concern and the 
opportunity for legislative decision. It was said in 1987 that Wyoming was only one of 
four states lacking statutes relating to disabled adult children. Horan, 
Postminority Support for College Education - A Legally Enforceable Obligation in 
Divorce Proceedings?, 20 Fam.L.Q. 589, 589 n. 1 (1987). Comprehensive 
consideration can be additionally found in Washburn, Post-Majority Support: Oh 
Dad, Poor Dad, 44 Temp. L.Q. 319 (1971); Note, Express Provision for 
Post-Majority Child Support in Dissolution Decree Is Valid By Operation of the 
Marriage Dissolution Act of 1973. In re Marriage of Melville, 11 Wn. App. 879, 
526 P.2d 1228 (1974), 10 Gonz.L.Rev. 933 (1975); and H. Clark, Law of Domestic 
Relations ch. 15 at 495 (1968). See also Annotation, Parent's Obligation to 
Support Adult Child, 1 A.L.R.2d 910 (1948 & 1985 Supp.); Annotation, 
Responsibility of Noncustodial Divorced Parent to Pay For, Or Contribute To, 
Costs of Child's College Education, 99 A.L.R.3d 322 (1980); and Annotation, 
Post-Majority Disability as Reviving Parental Duty to Support Child, 48 
A.L.R.4th 919 (1986).

[¶18.]  The special concurrence in Kamp, 640 P.2d  
at 52 quoted from the Iowa case of Davis v. Davis, 246 Iowa 262, 67 N.W.2d 566, 568 
(1954):

"It is true, as 
respondent suggests, that generally at common law a parent's obligation to 
support his child ends when the latter becomes of age. But there is an 
important, widely recognized exception to this rule where the child because of 
weak body or mind is unable to care for itself upon attaining majority. The 
obligation to support such a child ceases only when the necessity for the 
support ceases. Courts throughout the land have so held emphatically and 
eloquently."

Rationally, in 
this world of 1989, it is absurd and perhaps almost criminal to believe that a 
nineteen-year-old without advanced education is realistically able "to care for 
[him]self upon obtaining majority" within this computer world or that the 
"necessity for the support ceases" for further education which is pursued by the 
young individual.

[¶19.]  In this era of divorce, Kamp - Jennings will have a broad 
social affect and it is my conviction that Wyo. Const. art. 2, § 1 constitutes 
for the legislature a call to establish by an enacted statute where the 
limitations of enforceable responsibility of parents to their children should 
end. I would hope that the legislature would be constitutionally summoned to 
that task in order that this court does not continue to be responsible to 
substitute an ad hoc case-to-case adjudication.2

[¶20.]  I specially concur on the basis that the 
legislature has provided, for me, no direction for enforceable parental 
obligation for support or maintenance of their children after the age of 
majority has been achieved, except within the small enclave this court has 
previously carved out in Kamp. The balancing of rights and responsibilities 
within the fundamental relationship of parent and child calls first for the 
legislature to regulate and define and then only for the judiciary to apply, 
differentiate with set standards and finally to enforce. See a discussion of 
these problems with the answers provided in Griffin v. Griffin, 384 
Pa. Super. 
188, 558 A.2d 75 (1989) and the cited scholastic reviews which provide both 
interesting thought and exciting challenge.3   

 
 
FOOTNOTES

1 The record does not 
inform whether Christopher was sentenced under the deferred conviction process 
of W.S. 7-13-301 in order that good behavior and probation term compliance would 
save him being tagged a FELON - A CONVICT - a person who had lost many civil 
liberties including the right to vote, serve on a jury or own a firearm. Marlana 
Kamp could only be loved, maintained and protected. Christopher might be saved. 
When half of the American adult population becomes felons and convicts and that 
fact comes to be recognized by the remaining voters, perhaps the untainted 
legislators, the judiciary and even the decisional public will understand the 
permanent and pervasive scars of felony conviction and destroyed capacity and 
lost opportunity for societal contribution. See W.S. 6-10-106(a), which states 
that "[a] person convicted of a felony is incompetent to be an elector or juror 
or to hold any office of honor, trust or profit within this state, * * *." See 
also 18 U.S.C.A. app. §§ 1201 and 1202 (West 1985), federal Firearms 
Act.

2 The authorities also 
agree that the Viet Nam war motivated reduction in the age of majority to 
nineteen or, in some states, eighteen, and had, conversely, great detriment in 
problems relating to the young people of our society. We reduce the age of 
majority, but at the same time by economic and societal developments, delay the 
earliest age at which most young people can realistically expect to be 
economically emancipated. At least by the prior majority age of twenty-one, 
aspiring students were well underway in pursuing college education or technical 
training.

3 Griffin casually notes 
another problem which deserves realistic attention by the legislature. What 
participation should the young, near-adult or adult child have in the litigative 
proceeding for their support and to whom should the payments be made? It may 
well be that surrogate litigating by the parents in the name of or for the 
benefit of the older child might providently be benefitted by direct litigation 
or at least participation by the person whose interests are most immediately 
involved.