Court Opinion

ID: 9602874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:01:04.812942+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:07.155085
License: Public Domain

Hill, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. A stepparent is not under any legal obligation to support the children by a former marriage of his or her spouse. Wood v. Wood, 166 Ga. 519 (5) (143 SE 770) (1928); Chapin v. Cummings, 191 Ga. 408, 412 (12 SE2d 312) (1940); Brown v. Sockwell, 26 Ga. 380, 386 (1858). Such an obligation may be created by adoption or by establishment of an in loco parentis relationship. See Wood, supra. However, children of a broken marriage, for example, become stepchildren if either of their parents remarries. Thus, such stepchildren are eligible under our statute for payments because of employment of the spouse of their noncustodial parent as well as because of the employment of the custodial parent or the custodial parent’s spouse.
I can find no rational basis for such a result. The conclusive presumption of dependency of stepchildren found in Code Ann. § 114-414 is arbitrary and therefore not a constitutionally permissible legislative action.
If a stepchild should happen to have been placed by a stepparent in a position of dependency on that stepparent, *351under the section attacked that stepchild may establish the dependency based on the facts at the time of the accident.
I would find that so far as Code Ann. § 114-414 establishes conclusive presumptions of dependency of stepchildren, it is unconstitutional, and that the decision of the court below should be affirmed.
I am authorized to state that Justice Ingram and Justice Bowles join in this dissent.