Court Opinion

ID: 9703646
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:03:12.309001+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:50.994279
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, J.,
concurring.
I join in the Court’s determination that, under the facts of this case, it is fair to require Somerville and Manville to abide by their mutual agreement to share equally in the educational expenses for A.P. I write separately to emphasize that the Appellate Division’s decision should not be viewed as overturning the unitary concept of domicile. Rather, the court recognized that A.P. has alternating domiciles and therefore that the two school districts involved should share the costs as they had agreed. Nothing in the opinions of the Appellate Division or this Court should be viewed as precluding the Department of Education from promulgating regulations that are consistent with the theory that a school-aged child can have only one domicile. Those regulations, however, would presumably be prospective. To fill the gap pending the effective date of those regulations, when joint legal and physical custody is awarded, either the written agreement between the parents, or the order or judgment of the trial court should specify the domicile of the child. The polestar of the Court’s opinion and the proposed regulations is educational continuity for A.P.
Justice LaVACCHIA joins in this opinion.
*60For affirmance — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices STEIN, COLEMAN, LONG, VERNIERO, LaVECCHIA and ZAZZALI — 7.
Opposed — none.