Opinion ID: 1115867
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Majority of Child

Text: Father asserts that the duty of support found in ORS 109.010 extends to and may be extracted from minor children only. We disagree. The word children is used in both clauses of ORS 109.010. The word only has meaning in the second clause if it encompasses adult children. The failure to differentiate between adult children and minor children in the two clauses suggests that the drafters had all children in mind. In addition, the same term, children, was used in the Elizabethan poor laws and now appears in the statutes regulating the public duty of support. There it connotes relationship, rather than age. The same meaning applies to the word as used in the enactment of the private duty of support. Other states have recognized that the parental duty of support extends to adult incapacitated children. Crain v. Mallone, 130 Ky. 125, 113 S.W. 67 (1908), held that an incompetent adult son's share of his mother's estate should not be reduced by the amount of support his mother provided him during his majority. The court stated: The duty and obligation of a parent to care for his offspring does not terminate when the child arrives at age or becomes an adult; nor is it limited to infants and children of tender years. An adult child may from accident or disease be as helpless and incapable of making his support as an infant, and we see no difference in principle between the duty imposed upon the parent to support the infant and the obligation to care for the adult, who is equally, if not more, dependent upon the parent. In either case the natural as well as the legal obligation is the same, if the parent is financially able to furnish the necessary assistance. 130 Ky. at 129-30, 113 S.W. 67. In Schultz v. Western Farm Tractor Co., 111 Wash. 351, 190 P. 1007 (1920), the court upheld the amount awarded to an adult incompetent son for the wrongful death of his father, under the theory that the father owed a duty of support to his son so long as the son was disabled: Doubtless the legal duty of a parent to support his normal children ceases at the age of majority, but the rule is not the same with respect to his defective children, whether the defect be mental or physical. To these he owes a continuing obligation of support, which ceases only when the necessity for support ceases. 111 Wash. at 354, 190 P. 1007. Similarly, in Borchert v. Borchert, 185 Md. 586, 45 A.2d 463 (1946), the court indicated that the parents' duty of support extended to an adult handicapped child, but modification of a decree of child support was not the appropriate procedure by which to enforce the duty. In dictum, the court acknowledged: The doctrine of liability in a father to support an incapacitated adult child seems to have permeated the courts of this country, in many cases without any statutory enactment to support it. The obligation is set out in a great many cases, often in those judicial expressions known as obiter dicta.    However vague and unsatisfactory such statements are, it must be concluded, in view of the many decisions so holding, that there is now a tendency in this country, whether based upon local statutes or upon a modern judicial expansion of the common law, to recognize a duty imposed upon a parent to support his incapacitated child. 185 Md. at 591-92, 45 A.2d 463. Prosser v. Prosser, 159 Kan. 651, 157 P.2d 544 (1945), is almost identical to the instant case. Mother sued on behalf of her 22 year old incapacitated daughter for support from the child's father. The court granted relief, describing the action as one to enforce a common law duty of a parent to support and maintain his children. The court stated: It is a generally accepted rule that where a child on becoming of age is in such a feeble and dependent condition physically or mentally as to be unable to support himself the parental obligations and duties toward such a child remain unchanged. 159 Kan at 653, 157 P.2d 544.