Court Opinion

ID: 9585624
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:02:18.601255+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:43.714526
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
with whom RABI-NOWITZ, Justice, joins, dissenting.
Today’s opinion overrules the holding of Hinchey v. Hinchey, 625 P.2d 297 (Alaska 1981) that a court may order a divorced *484parent to pay educational' support to adult children for three reasons which are largely left to implication:
(1) Because AS 09.55.220, a statute not involved in Hinchey, authorizes modification of a child support order as to “minor children.” The majority apparently believes that because of the language of § 220 courts, by negative implication, lack authority to modify a decree which provides support for adult children. Premised on this belief, the court evidently concludes that no decree providing support for adult children is permissible.
(2) Because AS 11.51.120 makes it a crime to fail to support minor, but not adult children.
(3) Because an adult child of married parents is not generally entitled to parental support, the court apparently believes that it follows that the legislature meant to bar a court in a divorce action from ordering post-majority educational support.
In my view all of these reasons are invalid.
I.
Turning to the first reason for the majority’s decision, I do not agree that AS 09.55.-220 can properly be read to impose, by means of a negative implication, a bar on the modification of a divorce decree which provides for post-majority child support. It has been well recognized that courts have the power to provide post-majority support for handicapped children. See H. Clark, Law of Domestic Relations § 15.1, at 495 (1968). See also Wells v. Wells, 227 N.C. 614, 44 S.E.2d 31 (1947); Commonwealth ex rel. Groff v. Groff, 173 Pa.Super. 535, 98 A.2d 449 (1953); Van Tinker v. Van Tinker, 38 Wash.2d 390, 229 P.2d 333 (1951). See generally Annot., 1 A.L.R.2d 910, 921 (1948). Likewise, it cannot be doubted that a separation agreement incorporated into a divorce decree in which one spouse has agreed to pay support for an adult child is enforceable.1 H. Clark, supra § 15.1, at 495. To interpret AS 09.55.220 as prohibiting modification of a decree providing for support for an adult child under either of these circumstances would be ridiculous. If an adult child's need for support substantially decreases that should be a changed circumstance justifying modification of the support decree; AS 09.55.220 was plainly not intended' to prohibit modification in such a circumstance.
Moreover, the power to grant a certain type of remedy carries with it, as a procedural matter, the power to modify the remedy in appropriate circumstances in the future. That is the meaning and function of Civil Rule 60(b).2 J.C. v. M.L.C., 668 P.2d 1351, 1352 (Alaska 1983). If § 220 were meant to eliminate this power it would be in .conflict with Rule 60(b) and would be invalid under Art. IV, § 15 of the Constitution of Alaska.3
For these reasons, the majority’s premise that § 220 prohibits modification of a decree which provides support for adult children is incorrect. It follows that the majority’s implied conclusion that § 220 prohibits, by implication, decrees providing support for adult children is unfounded.
II.
The second reason expressed by the majority in support of its conclusion that post-majority educational support may not be ordered is that AS 11.51.120 makes it a crime for a parent to fail to support minor, but not adult children. In my view there is no logical connection between this criminal statute and the issue of the power of the court to decree payment of support for *485adult children in a civil action. Merely because a party’s failure to act in a certain way is not a crime does not cast any light on whether a civil court may order the party to so act. For example, as noted above, courts have the power to decree post-majority support for adult handicapped children. The legislature has not, however, made non-support of adult handicapped children a crime. It could not reasonably be inferred from this fact that the legislature has intended to preclude courts from ordering parents to support their handicapped adult children. Civil courts have ample power to enforce their decrees independent of the criminal law. Likewise, the crime of non-support of minors may be committed whether or not any civil decree exists.
III.
I now address the third reason. It is true that non-divorced parents are ordinarily not required to pay support to their adult children. It does not follow from this fact that a legislature might not rationally permit an award for educational support for adult children in a divorce decree. The Washington Supreme Court has recently addressed this issue in Childers v. Childers, 89 Wash.2d 592, 575 P.2d 201 (1978):
The fact that married parents may legally bid their children “a fiscal farewell” at age 18 when some divorced parents may be legally required to provide financial support when they are able but do not chose to do so, led the Court of Appeals to its conclusion. The fact that most married parents chose willingly to make financial sacrifices for their childrens’ education, including college and regardless of age, seems to have been disregard-ed_
In allowing for divorce, the state undertakes to protect its victims.... Quoting from R. Washburn, Post-Majority Support: Oh Dad, Poor Dad, 44 Temple L.Q. 319, 327, 329 (1971):
A number of courts adopt the policy that a child should not suffer because his parents are divorced. The child of divorce parents should be in no worse position than a child from an unbroken home whose parents could be expected to supply a college education.
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To terminate support when the parents are divorced creates a special disadvantage not shared by children whose parents remain together.' If the father could have been expected to provide advanced education for his child, it is not unfair to expect him to do so after he has been divorced.
That the divorced parent, especially non-custodial, will sometimes not willingly provide what he otherwise would have but for the divorce, we recognized long ago in Esteb v. Esteb, 138 Wash. 174, 184, 244 P. 264, 267, 246 P. 27 (1926):
.... Parents, when deprived of the custody of their children, very often refuse to do for such children what natural instinct would ordinarily prompt them to do....
In the 1973 act, the legislature simply allows the court to secure for the chil•dren what they would have received from their parents except for the divorce, limited to that which is necessary for the children’s and society’s well-being and that which will not work an undue hardship on parents. Nothing more is expected of divorced parents than married parents, and nothing less.
In all probability more married parents will be making sacrifices financially for their children 18 and up than will the divorced parents who, in the sound discretion of the trial court, will have a legally imposed duty to do so. Even if the legislation does create a classification, it rests upon a reasonable basis. It is based on considerations already mentioned, and the facts known to the legislature and this court as well as to the layman, of the disruptions to homelife, bitterness and emotional upset which attend most marital breaks. The irremediable disadvantages to children whose parents have divorced are great enough. *486To minimize them, when possible, is certainly a legitimate governmental interest.
Id. at 207-208 (citations and footnotes omitted).
In conclusion, none of the three reasons alluded to by the majority for overruling Hinchey has merit. Thus, I continue to believe that the holding of Hinchey is correct for the reasons there expressed. I therefore conclude that the superior court had authority to decide appellant’s motion seeking modification of the child support provisions of the decree. I would remand this case for consideration of the motion on its merits.

. Indeed, the majority has recognized this in today’s opinion. (Op. p. 483, note 7).

. Civil Rule 60(b) governs modification of divorce decrees as to child custody and support issues. See, e.g., Livingston v. Livingston, 572 P.2d 79, 85-87 (Alaska 1977).

. Art IV, § 15 provides:
The supreme court shall make and promulgate rules governing the administration of all courts. It shall make and promulgate rules governing practice and procedure in civil and criminal cases in all courts. These rules may be changed by the legislature by ¾ vote of the members elected to each house.