Court Opinion

ID: 9542885
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:39:54.57799+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:10.131065
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Spaulding, J.:
I respectfully dissent.
In its haste to reach what may very well be a “correct” result, it distresses me that the majority ignores an important procedural question which in my opinion bars appellant from raising the fundamental question of his support obligation.
Appellant William Colantoni and his wife Elvira, appellee, have been separated since 1968. On August 29 of that year, the court below entered an order directing appellant to pay $100 per week for the support of his wife and also to assume the costs of his 23 year old son’s medical school education consistent with appellant’s “station in life.” There was no appeal. Pursuant to that order, appellant paid $5000 toward his son’s second year expenses. During that year the son married. Notwithstanding this event, appellant was Avilling to contribute part of the costs of his son’s third year in school. However, because of the marriage and his daughter-in-law’s employment, he no longer wished to contribute the same sum — $5000—he had paid the previous year. On September 29, 1969, appellee filed a “petition for modification” of the support order claiming that appellant had made no payment for the 1969-1970 school year. A hearing was held and on November 21, 1969, appellant was ordered to pay the sum of $4000 for the 1969-1970 year. The present appeal is from the November 1969 order.
Appellant now contends that because the son is in medical school, married, no longer a member of the *53“household” and twenty-four years of age, absent an express agreement, there should be no support obligation on the parent.
Appellant never appealed from the order of August 29, 1968, and only a “change in circumstances” warrants a modification of the original decree, Commonwealth ex rel. McAlaine v. McAlaine, 203 Pa. Superior Ct. 276, 199 A. 2d 498 (1964). As there stated by Judge Montgomery : “The order . . . was a final judgment and was appealable, subject to modification only upon a change in the circumstances of the parties. As such, particularly after the time for appeal had expired, it was subject to the same rule applicable to other judgments, viz., that it may not be reconsidered (in the absence of changed circumstances) after expiration of the term during which it was entered, even to make corrections in it which were erroneous in law.” at p. 279
At the time of appellee’s petition for modification the only “change in circumstance” was the son’s marriage.1 However, appellant does not in fact rely on the change in marital status in this appeal. Rather he argues those points which should have been raised on appeal from the original support decree. The basic issue of whether a parent is obligated to support an adult son in medical school or in any other graduate school is a legal question which appellant waived by not filing a timely appeal from the 1968 support decree.
It might very well be that an adult son’s marriage in and of itself — notwithstanding the absence of real *54change in financial circumstances vis-a-vis the parent— warrants the termination of a previously entered support decree. However, the majority does not deal with this issue. Rather, it chooses to discuss at length the general question of the parent’s support obligation for an adult son in graduate school.
As it is my opinion that the question of whether appellant has a legal obligation to'support his adult son in medical school should not be considered in this appeal, Commonwealth ex rel. McAlaine v. McAlaine, supra, I must dissent.
Hoffman, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

 The majority opinion neglects to mention that there is no indication on the record that the son is now capable of providing his own education, that his wife’s employment was sufficient to provide the necessary funds or that the wife was an increased financial burden on the son, with the father now being forced to support her as well.