Case Name: Richard F. CARTER, Appellant, v. Jonalene CARTER, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1987-08-05
Citations: 511 So. 2d 404
Docket Number: No. 4-86-0962
Parties: Richard F. CARTER, Appellant, v. Jonalene CARTER, Appellee.
Judges: DELL and GUNTHER, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 511
Pages: 404–410

Head Matter:
Richard F. CARTER, Appellant, v. Jonalene CARTER, Appellee.
No. 4-86-0962.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
Aug. 5, 1987.
Jack Edward Orsley of Law Offices of Orsley & Cripps, P.A., West Palm Beach, for appellant.
No appearance for appellee.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
Appellee, the divorced mother of a high school student, sought a modification of child support. The order granting the modification provided:
A. The husband shall pay child support for RICHARD in accordance with Exhibit "A". The husband's child support obligation shall continue past the child's 18th birthday if the child is still attempting to complete high school. In that event it will end on:
1. his dropping out; or
2. his graduation from high school; or
3. his 19th birthday, whichever comes first.
Appellant, the child's father, contends that the trial court erred by extending his child-support obligation beyond the child's eighteenth birthday. The father submits that a court may not require a parent to support a child beyond his eighteenth birthday simply because that child is still attending high school. We agree.
The fact that a post-majority child is still attending high school does not make that child dependent within the meaning of section 743.07, Florida Statutes (1985). See Grapin v. Grapin, 450 So.2d 853 (Fla. 1984); French v. French, 452 So.2d 647 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984); Haskew v. Haskew, 448 So.2d 79 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984); Klein v. Klein, 413 So.2d 1297 (Fla. 4th DCA 1982); Genoe v. Genoe, 373 So.2d 940 (Fla. 4th DCA 1979); Kern v. Kern, 360 So.2d 482 (Fla. 4th DCA 1978); Priede v. Priede, 474 So.2d 296 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985); Coalla v. Coalla, 330 So.2d 802 (Fla. 2d DCA 1976); Krogen v. Krogen, 320 So.2d 483 (Fla. 3d DCA 1975).
In Grapin v. Grapin, the Florida Supreme Court held that it would be fundamentally unfair to require divorced parents to provide a college education to their post-majority children. The Grapin opinion quoted with approval the following dissent:
As Judge Cowart pointed out in his dissent to a decision affirming a post-majority support order for a high school student:
It denies such divorced parents their constitutional right to equal treatment under law; that being the same right to voluntarily make such decisions concerning their adult children as other, undivorced parents have under law. I cannot agree with a rule of law that permits domestic relations judges to create and enforce special duties of support in favor of adult children against divorced parents which are not provided by general law equally applicable to all parents.
Owens v. Owens, 415 So.2d 855, 858 (Fla. 5th DCA 1982) (Cowart, J., dissenting)
450 So.2d 854.
It is noteworthy that the Owens opinion concerned a divorced parent's obligation to provide continued support for a post-majority high school child. We believe that the supreme court, by relying on the dissent in Owens, has endorsed the proposition that an order extending the obligation to support a post-majority high school child would deny the paying parent his or her constitutional right to equal treatment under the law since an undivorced parent has no such support obligation. Thus, the supreme court has indirectly expressed itself on this issue.
We are aware of the holding in Evans v. Evans, 456 So.2d 956 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984), that legal dependency of a child attending high school can be predicated upon economic incapacity, apart from any mental or physical infirmity. Evans cites Finn v. Finn, 312 So.2d 726 (Fla.1975), for its contention that legal dependency may encompass the economic dependency of an offspring pursuing a high school education beyond the age of eighteen. However, we believe any reliance on the dictum in Finn for the proposition that high school attendance alone renders a post-majority child dependent is in direct conflict with the reasoning of the supreme court's decision in Grapin. See Grapin, 450 So.2d at 854-55. We are also aware of the third district's decision in Plant v. Plant, 504 So.2d 44 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987), although it is difficult to determine from the limited facts set forth in Plant whether it conflicts with the present case.
In accord with the supreme court's decision in Grapin, the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Keenan v. Keenan, 440 So.2d 642 (Fla. 5th DCA 1983), denied support to an eighteen-year-old high school student. The Keenan court, reasoning that it could not convert a moral obligation of support into a legal duty, stated:
Because there is no authority for a healthy, able-bodied child of undivorced parents to demand (through suit, if necessary) that his parents provide him with an education past age 16 . or any type of support beyond age 18, there cannot exist a rule of law that permits a domestic relations judge to create and enforce special duties of support in favor of equally healthy and able-bodied children of divorced parents, once those children reach age 18.
440 So.2d 644-46.
The second district, reaching a similar conclusion, reversed an order that required a father to provide support for his eighteen-year-old daughter until her graduation from high school. Stultz v. Stultz, 504 So.2d 5 (Fla. 2d DCA 1986). While agreeing that a parent has a moral duty to provide a child with a high school education, the court in Stultz nevertheless held that, absent a finding of mental or physical deficiency, a parent has no legally enforceable duty of support to an adult child. As pointed out in that opinion: "[I]f a legal duty to provide post-majority high school education support is to be created, the legislature is the fountain out of which this legal duty is to spring." 504 So.2d at 6.
In short, as the law stands in Florida today, a parent has no legal obligation to support a child who has attained his majority unless that child is statutorily dependent. Although we may wish it otherwise, attendance at high school or college classes, resulting in economic dependence upon the parents, does not transform an otherwise ineligible adult child into a dependent as contemplated by section 743.07, Florida Statutes (1985). Since the child here appears to be dependent only by reason of his attendance at high school, we must reverse the order of the trial court insofar as it requires the father to pay support beyond the child's eighteenth birthday.
REVERSED.
DELL and GUNTHER, JJ., concur.
GLICKSTEIN, J., dissents with opinion.