Opinion ID: 1115867
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Heading: Origins of Familial Obligations of Support

Text: The rights and responsibilities of family members toward each other are regulated by many of our statutes. Parental support obligations toward minor children after dissolution are addressed in ORS 107.095, 107.105, 107.108 and 107.135. The criminal code prohibits child abandonment and neglect by those adults, most often the parents, with a responsibility to maintain the child. ORS 163.535, 163.545. Our laws punish a parent's failure to support a child financially. ORS 163.555. [1] See also Burnette v. Wahl, 284 Or. 705, 709, 588 P.2d 1105 (1978). Linde, J., in his dissent in Burnette noted that many of our criminal laws are redefinitions of common law crimes and have civil analogues in common law torts. Alternatively, criminal and regulatory laws may be enacted to add governmental enforcement to the recognized obligations of a relationship existing apart from the legislation. 284 Or. at 728, 588 P.2d 1105. Of particular relevance to the present case is the development of two civil statutes, ORS 416.061 and ORS 109.010, both of which address the duty of close family members, defined differently in the two statutory schemes, to support indigent relatives. Both statutes set forth a similar duty of support. However, their historical antecedents, purposes and development indicate that these statutes were enacted to address separate social concerns. ORS chapter 416, the relative responsibility law, has its origins in the Elizabethan poor laws of 1601. These laws constituted one of the first systems of public welfare for the poor. [2] ORS 109.010 represents private familial obligations that developed in America independently of England.
The Elizabethan poor laws, including the provision requiring family members to support their needy relatives, provided a model for the systems of public support found in most American jurisdictions, including our own and those of New York. tenBroek, California's Dual System of Family Law: Its Origin, Development and Present Status, Part I, 16 Stan L Rev 257, 258 (1964). The Elizabethan poor laws came into being in response to the demise of the power and wealth of religious institutions, which had assumed the burden to support the poor, and the subsequent unrest manifested in widespread vagrancy and begging that unassuaged poverty engendered. Professor tenBroek writes that the poor laws culminated the process of shifting the burden to alleviate poverty from the ecclesiastical, private and voluntary to the civil, public and compulsory. tenBroek, supra at 282. In the Elizabethan system, support of the poor was achieved by taxation and was regulated at the county level. As a corollary, these statutes included features intended to reduce the burden on the public treasury. For example, the poor laws mandated forced labor at fixed wages for all paupers capable of working. They relocated the poor to the parishes of their birth and limited their mobility. They provided criminal sanctions for vagrancy, begging and refusing to work if able. Finally, they compelled financially able relatives to contribute to the support of family members who were public charges. [3] This last law, 43 Eliz 1, c. 2, § 7 (1601), provided: And be it further enacted, That the father and grandfather, and the mother and grandmother, and the children of every poor, old, blind, lame and impotent person, or other poor person not able to work, being of a sufficient ability, shall, at their own charges, relieve and maintain every such poor person in that manner, and according to that rate, as by the justices of peace of that county where such sufficient persons dwell, or the greater number of them, at their general quarter-sessions shall be assessed; (2) upon pain that every one of them shall forfeit twenty shillings for every month which they shall fail therein. This law found its way into the American statutes regulating public support of the poor, discussed infra.
While it is doubtful that English common law recognized enforceable familial obligations of support apart from the Elizabethan poor laws, [4] such was not the case in the United States. Early American cases recognized the parents', specifically the father's, duty to support his children. [5] The duty of support, which was examined in a variety of contexts, was often said to exist as a matter of common law and independently of statute. See Hillsborough v. Deering, 4 N.H. 86, 95 (1827) (child's right to support from parent derives from common law and exists independently of statute); Godfrey v. Hays, 6 Ala. 501, 502 (1844) (father obliged to support son and in exchange entitled to earnings of son); McGoon v. Irvin, 1 Pin. 526, 532 (Wis. 1845) (parents have legal obligation to maintain and support children; must reimburse third person for necessaries provided to child); Thompson and Waters v. Dorsey, 4 Md.Ch. 149, 151 (1853) (father's estate must reimburse third person who supplied necessaries to child because parents are bound to maintain their children); House v. House, 6 Ind. 60, 61 (1854) (another family member entitled to reimbursement from father's estate for support of adult incompetent son; court found both a contract by father and a moral obligation to support son); Haase v. Roehrscheid, 6 Ind. 66, 68 (1854) (father, trustee of children's estate, had duty to support and educate his children and therefore could not make a claim for reimbursement against their estate without showing of inability to meet his duty); Dawson v. Dawson, 12 Iowa 512, 514-15 (1861) (the obligation of parents to support their children is a perfect common law duty but third person not entitled to reimbursement from adult child for necessaries furnished to father. Child's obligation to parent is a duty imposed only by statute); Plaster v. Plaster, 47 Ill. 290, 291 (1868) (mother brought a suit at equity for child support from the father; father had a natural and legal duty to support his child which duty was enforceable in equity); Tanner v. Skinner, 74 Ky. (11 Bush) 120, 130 (1874) (father not entitled to reimbursement from children's estate for costs of their support because this is a legal duty father owes children); In re Hippert's Estate, 12 Lanc. Bar 68 (Pa. 1880) (children not entitled to support claim from mother's estate. At common law only father was bound to support his children); Johnson v. Barnes, 69 Iowa 641, 643, 29 N.W. 759 (1886) (wife not entitled to contribution from husband when both parents were equally responsible to support children because independent of any statute, parents are bound to contribute to the support of their minor children   .); Gilley v. Gilley, 79 Me. 292, 295, 9 A. 623 (1887) (mother successfully sued father for support of children. By the common law, without reference to any statute, a father of sufficient ability is as much bound to support his children as a husband is bound by the common law to support his wife); Porter v. Powell, 79 Iowa 151, 153, 44 N.W. 295 (1890) (father obliged to third person who provided necessaries to child. Parental obligations to support children exist independent of statute). Johnson v. Barnes, supra , made explicit reference to the difference between the English common law, which did not recognize a parental duty of support, and the American common law, which recognized such a duty. The court noted the uncertainty or nonexistence of the English common law duty but was not prepared to say that this rule has been adopted in this country   . 69 Iowa at 643, 29 N.W. 759. Gilley v. Gilley, supra , acknowledged the minority American position, similar to England's, that no duty of support existed outside of statute but applied the settled state law that such a duty existed and was enforceable. 79 Me. at 296, 9 A. 623. All cases involved minor children. However, Plaster v. Plaster, supra , elaborated in dictum that the duty of support should also extend into the child's adulthood if from physical debility and impaired health, the boy is unable to earn a livelihood, and must depend upon others for support  . 47 Ill. at 294. Porter v. Powell, supra , reasoned that the parental obligation of support is not grounded in the duty of the child to serve the parent but on the inability of the child to care for itself. Therefore, the parent has a legal as well as    moral duty to support his child when [she is] unable, from infancy, disease or accident, to earn her own necessary support   . 79 Iowa at 159, 44 N.W. 295. The development in New York of the parents' common law obligation of support is of particular interest because of its influence on the New York Field Codes, a comprehensive codification of laws and the likely model for both of our statutory duties of support. [6] In Van Valkinburgh v. Watson, 13 Johns 480 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1816), the court recognized the parent's natural obligation to supply necessaries for his minor children and indicated that if a third person supplies necessaries required by the parent's neglect, the third person has conferred a benefit upon the parent and the law will imply a promise to pay. The court did not allow recovery in the case because it found that the child was cared for adequately and the father had not neglected his duty of support. Edwards v. Davis, 16 Johns 281 (N.Y. Sup.Ct. 1819), a suit between siblings seeking contribution for expenses incurred in supporting parents, distinguished between the child's duty to support its parents, a duty the court found derived from statute and not common law, and the parents' duty to support their children: The duty of a parent to maintain his offspring, until they attain the age of maturity, is a perfect common law duty. The liability of a child to support its parents, who are infirm, destitute, or aged, is wholly created by statute   . 16 Johns at 285. [7] Though this language is dicta in the case, it appears to have influenced the Field Code drafters. By 1863 in New York the duty was said to encompass adult incapacitated children as well. Cromwell v. Benjamin, 41 Barb 558 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1863), held a father liable to a third person who supplied necessaries to his minor son and his adult daughter who was unmarried and an invalid unable to support herself by her labor. 41 Barb at 561. The court compared the parental obligation of support to the common law duty requiring a husband to support a wife. We have found no case squarely addressing the parental duty to support adult incapacitated children before 1854, the date of enactment of the predecessor to ORS 109.010. Whether the common law recognized a duty to support such children before this time is inconclusive. However, the language of the statute proposed in New York and adopted in this state indicates that children is not a term limited to those of minority age but rather connotes an ongoing relationship among family members.