Court Opinion

ID: 9767103
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:09:42.197341+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:28.426550
License: Public Domain

CIRILLO, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully note my dissent. Although Father does not expressly raise a constitutional equal protection challenge to Act 62, in my opinion this court denies ultimate justice by ignoring the blatant issue before it, that Act 62 invidiously discriminates against divorced parents.1
In 1992, our Supreme Court determined that the duty of support extended to a “basic education,” defined as a high school education, or until a minor reaches the age of eighteen, whichever occurs later. Blue v. Blue, 532 Pa. 521, 616 A.2d 628 (1992). The Court stated:
In recent history, the Superior Court has adopted and applied the [Commonwealth v.] Gilmore[, 97 Pa.Super. 303 (1929)] analysis to college educational support of a child. In essence, the Superior Court has transferred this “principle of necessity” of a basic fundamental education to a require*489ment that each child be entitled to an “enhanced” education.
We do not agree with this transformation.
Id. 532 Pa. at 529, 616 A.2d at 632.
Act 62, applicable only to divorced parents, imposes upon that class of parents an obligation to provide financially for an adult child’s college or postsecondary education. Nondivorced parents have no coextensive legal obligation to provide support for their child’s postsecondary education. Just as parents in an intact family enjoy the freedom of making the personal decision of whether and to what extent to provide postsecondary educational support for their child, free from interference or mandates by the courts or laws of the Commonwealth, so too should divorced parents be free to manage this matter on their own.
In my opinion, Act 62 differentiates between parents similarly situated and that this classification bears no reasonable relationship to a legitimate legislative purpose. See McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 425-26, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 1104-05, 6 L.Ed.2d 393 (1961). Act 62, which codifies this court’s pronouncements beginning with Ulmer v. Sommerville, 200 Pa.Super. 640, 190 A.2d 182 (1963), frustrates the legislative purpose to assure children of divorced parents a postsecondary education. I discern no rational basis for compelling divorced parents to pay for their adult child’s post-secondary education where no similar obligation lies with non-divorced parents.
It is with this in mind that I would find that Act 62, which imposes a duty of postsecondary educational support upon divorced parents where no similar obligation exists for married parents, is unconstitutional on equal protection grounds. Application of Christy, 362 Pa. 347, 67 A.2d 85, cert. denied, Christy v. Conver, 338 U.S. 869, 70 S.Ct. 145, 94 L.Ed. 533 (1949); 16A Am.Jur.2d, Constitutional Law, §§ 735-738 (1979); 7A P.L.E. Constitutional Law, § 241 (1980). See Moore, Parents’ Support Obligations to Their Adult Children, 19 Akron L.Rev. 183, 192 (1985) (presenting the argument that *490compelling divorced parents but not married parents to pay post-minority support is a violation of equal protection).

. The term "divorced parents” refers to all parents to which Act 62 is applicable, including unmarried parents or separated parents subject to a support agreement, support order, property settlement agreement, equitable distribution agreement, custody agreement and/or court orders and agreed to or stipulated court orders. See 23 Pa.C.S. § 4327(i)(l).