Benson ex rel. Patterson v. Patterson

Citation782 A.2d 553
PartiesCheryl BENSON, on Behalf of Wiley Stanley PATTERSON, Jr., a Minor and Leona C. Lewis, on Behalf of Aaron Patterson, a Minor, Appellants v. Danita C. PATTERSON, Executrix of the Estate of Wiley Stanley Patterson, Deceased
Decision Date13 August 2001
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania

Timothy M. Anstine, Harrisburg, for appellants.

James H. Turner, Harrisburg, for appellee.

Before: POPOVICH, FORD ELLIOTT, and BROSKY, JJ.

FORD ELLIOTT, J.

¶ 1 This is an appeal from an order of the orphan's court of Dauphin County dismissing appellants' complaints for support. For the following reasons, we affirm.

¶ 2 The facts of the case are not in dispute. The deceased, Wiley Stanley Patterson ("Father"), was the biological father of the two children involved in this matter, Wiley Stanley Patterson, Jr., ("Stanley") born March 25, 1984, and Aaron Patterson, ("Aaron") born September 10, 1991. Each child was born out of wedlock. Appellants Cheryl Benson and Leona C. Lewis ("Mothers"), the respective mothers of Stanley and Aaron, maintained custody of the children. On February 23, 1998, the Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Section, entered an order of support directing Father to pay $55 per week in support of his son Stanley.1 This sum included an amount for arrearages from the effective date of May 23, 1994. On September 4, 1998, the court ordered Father to pay $395.39 per month in child support for his son Aaron.2 This sum also included an amount for arrearages from the effective date of October 7, 1993.

¶ 3 On August 1, 1999, Father died of cancer. Approximately one year before Father died, he was the recipient of a $2.5 million settlement in a personal injury action from an automobile accident. During his life, Father failed to make any of the court-ordered support payments. Shortly before his death, Father made a will which, after making a gift of $20,000 to Stanley and $1,000 to Aaron, left the residue of his estate to his sister and appointed her executrix.3 Father's gross estate as shown on his Pennsylvania Inheritance Tax Return is $1,099,534.21.

¶ 4 Because of Father's death, on August 10, 1999, the Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Section, terminated the support orders without prejudice. (R. 5a, 6a.) On October 9, 1999, however, Mothers received payments of arrearages from the Dauphin County Domestic Relations Office. On October 26 and 27, 1999, Mothers filed claims against the estate on behalf of the children seeking the continuation of support payments during the children's minorities, and an increase in the amount of support previously ordered.4

¶ 5 After hearing oral argument and considering the briefs of both parities, the Honorable Todd A. Hoover entered an order dismissing the complaints. Judge Hoover reasoned that there was no case law or legislative duty of support imposed on an estate of a deceased parent to support a minor child. The court cited Garney v. Estate of Hain, 439 Pa.Super. 42, 653 A.2d 21 (1995) (Del Sole, J. dissenting), appeal denied, 541 Pa. 626, 661 A.2d 873 (1995), in support of its decision. Mothers filed the instant appeal on May 5, 2000.

¶ 6 The unique issue for our review is whether a child support order, made during Father's life, creates an obligation on his estate to continue support until the children reach majority. Because we find no valid distinction between this specific issue and the issue decided in Garney, we are constrained to affirm.

¶ 7 In Garney, the parents of three children had been married and divorced. At the time of father's death, there was no court order for child support or other contractual agreement to provide support. Id. Father, however, had supported the children financially and, in fact, the children had lived with father and his second wife until the time of father's death. Id. at 22. Father's will did not provide for the children. Id. Rather, Father's entire estate went to his second wife who refused to care for the children after father died. Id. The biological mother sued the estate for support. ¶ 8 The trial court dismissed the complaint for support, and mother appealed to this court. The court held that the estate could not be compelled to pay child support in the absence of a support order or contractual agreement. This court agreed with the trial court that "the legislature has declined to impose a duty of support on the estate of a divorced parent, and there is no case law to be cited in support of such duty." Id. at 21.

¶ 9 Instantly, Mothers argue that the trial court's reliance on Garney is misplaced, as the facts of Garney differ from this matter in one crucial respect. Here, support orders were entered against Father before his death. Mothers posit that it is not necessary for us to overturn Garney in order to grant the relief they seek. Instead, Mothers would have this court refrain from extending the holding in Garney to cases where the deceased parent was subject to a support order before death.

¶ 10 Along with the factual circumstances of this matter and Garney, we have carefully considered prior case law and our support statutes. We believe that while the instant facts are distinguishable, in that support orders were entered at the time of Father's death, it is a distinction without a difference.

¶ 11 We begin by recognizing that at common law, "[a] parent has no ... obligation to provide for the support of his infant children after his death...." 59 Am.Jur.2d, Parent and Child, section 54, at 199 (1987). Closely related is the common law rule that a father has no duty to settle his estate upon his children. These principles were recognized by our supreme court in In re Fessman Estate, 386 Pa. 447, 452, 126 A.2d 676, 678 (1956), where it stated that "... a father, in the absence of a contract, has no legal obligation to support his children after his death, and is under no legal obligation to leave his children anything by will."

¶ 12 The receipt and amount of child support may be determined between parents by entering into an agreement, or by court order. While a marriage settlement agreement is a contract and may be separately enforced against the estate of a decedent, see Fessman Estate, supra,

the only basis for a court order requiring a parent to support a child arises from the imposition of a statutory duty. That duty is codified at 23 Pa.C.S.A. § 4321(2)5 and is well nigh absolute. Funk v. Funk, 376 Pa.Super. 76, 545 A.2d 326, 332 (1988). In Garney, this court implicitly held that the codification of the duty did not extend it after death. Garney, 653 A.2d at 21.

¶ 13 Therefore, we are bound by Garney,6 which concluded that the legislature has declined to impose a duty of support on the estate of a parent. Id. We point out that our supreme court denied allocatur in the Garney case. Garney v. Estate of Hain, 541 Pa. 626, 661 A.2d 873 (1995). Thus, it appears that the supreme court agreed with the majority's statement of the law and we have no authority to disregard it. See Commonwealth v. Martin, 727 A.2d 1136, 1141 (Pa.Super.1999)

("It is well-settled, however, that until the Supreme Court overrules a decision of this Court, our decision is the law of this Commonwealth."), quoting Commonwealth v. Leib, 403 Pa.Super. 223, 588 A.2d 922, 932 (1991).

¶ 14 Moreover, there appears to be no useful distinction between a child who claims support from the estate with or without a support order. The duty imposed by § 4321(2) applies to all children under the age of 18. Having concluded Garney controls, we nonetheless feel compelled to recognize, as did Judge Del Sole in dissent, that there are strong public policy concerns which would support extending the duty of support beyond the death of a parent.7

¶ 15 A review of case law from other jurisdictions shows a split of authority regarding this issue. See e.g., Abrego v. Abrego, 812 P.2d 806, 811-812 (Okla.1991)

(identifying the majority and minority views); Susan L. Thomas, J.D., Death of Obligor Parent as Affecting Decree for Support of Child; 14 A.L.R.5th 557 (1993) (addressing both theories and case examples). A number of jurisdictions have followed the common law approach, holding that absent either a contractual obligation or a statutory provision, the duty to provide child support under a court order terminates automatically upon the death of the payor parent.8 These courts reason that if a court desires to impose a greater duty than provided by common law, an agreement or decree of court must contain express language. Abrego, 812 P.2d at 811. "In the absence of such language, these courts assert no authority to impose the obligation on the deceased parent's estate." Id.

¶ 16 Jurisdictions following the common law approach often raise the inherent consequences of imposing such an obligation on a parent's estate. Id. at 812. We, too, recognize the host of unanswered questions that surface with this issue. For instance, some states find that continuing support obligations after death would result in circumventing the long-established common law right of a testator to make unrestricted dispositions of his estate. See e.g., Streight v. Streight's Estate, 226 Or. 386, 360 P.2d 304, 306 (1961)

. Some of these states raise 14th amendment concerns and conclude that such a result would put children of divorced parents in a preferred status. Unlike children in intact families, children of divorced parents would essentially have a right to inherit from a deceased parent due to the mandatory nature of the support order. Id.; see also appellee's brief at 4.

¶ 17 The Nevada supreme court raised other questions that were likely to occur when a child support order is permitted to be enforced against the payor parent's estate.

[S]hould not the obligation of the father's estate run equally to all his children, not just those whom he is under a court order to support, but those who are living in his
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