Marriage of Kohring, In re, 81139

• Citation: 999 S.W.2d 228
• Decision Date: 24 August 1999
• Docket Number: No. 81139,81139
• Parties: In re: The MARRIAGE OF Ellen KOHRING and Steven Snodgrass, Ellen Kohring, f/k/a Ellen Snodgrass, Respondent, v. Steven Snodgrass, Appellant.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

Page 228

999 S.W.2d 228

In re: The MARRIAGE OF Ellen KOHRING and Steven Snodgrass,

Ellen Kohring, f/k/a Ellen Snodgrass, Respondent, v. Steven Snodgrass, Appellant.

No. 81139.

Supreme Court of Missouri,

En Banc.

Aug. 24, 1999.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 21, 1999.

Jack J. Cavanagh, Jr., Paul J. Vaporean, St. Louis, for appellant.

Greg L. Roberts, Chesterfield, for respondent.

LIMBAUGH, J.

This is an appeal of a judgment ordering child support payments for college expenses. The case originated in 1989 when the marriage of appellant Steven Snodgrass and respondent Ellen Snodgrass (now Kohring) was dissolved in a proceeding before the Circuit Court of St. Louis County. The court awarded primary physical custody of the two minor children, Julie and Michael, to their mother and required their father to pay child support. In 1994, the court modified the child support order and increased father's monthly child support payment to $900. Following their daughter's application to attend the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1997, mother filed a motion to modify to compel father to pay a portion of their daughter's expenses for her college education. In response, father filed a motion to dismiss and a cross-motion to terminate child support. After an evidentiary hearing, the court overruled father's motions and ordered him to pay 80% of the daughter's expenses to attend the university as well as a portion of mother's attorney fees.

Father now raises the following points on appeal: 1) that section 452.340.5, RSMo Supp.1998--the statute permitting child support awards for college expenses--is unconstitutional because it violates the equal protection clause; 2) that daughter failed to comply with the requirements of section 452.340.5 in order to qualify for support payments for college expenses; 3) that the evidence did not support the disproportionate amount (80%) of support payments assessed against father; and 4) that the evidence did not support an award of attorney fees.

This Court has exclusive appellate jurisdiction because of the assertion that section 452.340.5 is invalid. Mo. Const. art. V, sec. 3. The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed in part and reversed in part.

I.

First, father claims that section 452.340.5 is unconstitutional because it violates the equal protection clauses of the United States Constitution and the Missouri Constitution. U.S. Const. amends. V and XIV; Mo. Const. art. I, sec. 2. In relevant part, section 452.340.5 states:

If when a child reaches age eighteen, the child is enrolled in and attending a secondary school program of instruction, the parental support obligation shall continue, if the child continues to attend and progresses toward completion of said program, until the child completes such program or reaches age twenty-one, whichever first occurs. If the child is enrolled in an institution of vocational or higher education not later than October first following graduation from a secondary school or completion of a graduation equivalence degree program and so long as the child enrolls for and completes at least twelve hours of credit each semester, not including the summer semester, at an institution of vocational or higher education and achieves grades sufficient to re-enroll at such institution, the parental support obligation shall continue until the child completes his or her education, or until the child reaches the age of twenty-two, whichever first occurs.

Statutes are presumed to be constitutional. Linton v. Missouri Veterinary Medical Bd., 988 S.W.2d 513, 515 (Mo. banc 1999). Because of the presumption of constitutionality, the burden to prove a statute unconstitutional is upon the party bringing the challenge. Id. This Court will not invalidate a statute "unless it clearly and undoubtedly contravenes the constitution and plainly and palpably affronts fundamental law embodied in the constitution." Id.

When considering a claim that a statute violates the Equal Protection Clause, the first step is to determine whether the challenged statutory classification "operates to the disadvantage of some suspect class or impinges upon a fundamental right explicitly or implicitly protected by the Constitution...." Missourians for Tax Justice Educ. Project v. Holden, 959 S.W.2d 100, 103 (Mo. banc 1997) (quoting San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 17, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973)). If so, the classification is subject to strict judicial scrutiny to determine whether it is necessary to accomplish a compelling state interest. See id. Otherwise, review is limited to a determination of whether the classification is rationally related to a legitimate state interest. Id.

A.

Father argues that section 452.340.5 burdens a previously unrecognized suspect class of unmarried, divorced, or legally separated parents and imposes on them a monetary obligation--funding their children's college education--that does not exist for married parents. A suspect class exists and will be legally categorized as such where a group of persons is "saddled with such disabilities, or subjected to such a history of purposeful unequal treatment, or relegated to such a position of political powerlessness as to command extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process." San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 28, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973). Father admits that no authority exists for his claim that unmarried, divorced, or legally separated parents constitute a suspect class. Furthermore, the status of suspect class traditionally has been reserved for classifications based on race, national origin, and illegitimacy, Call v. Heard, 925 S.W.2d 840, 846-47 (Mo. banc 1996), and in some cases, gender, see, e.g., State v. Stokely, 842 S.W.2d 77, 79 (Mo. banc 1992). Accordingly, this Court declines father's invitation to create a new suspect class.

Alternatively, father argues that section 452.340.5 burdens a different suspect class--illegitimate children and children from broken homes--by alienating them from the parent required to pay support and by subjecting them "to the regrettable but almost inevitable reality of divided allegiances to their parents." Father concedes that this claim is tenuous. While alienating children from their non-custodial parents may in some cases be an unfortunate byproduct of the statute, the very purpose and function of the statute is to support, rather than burden, the children in question. As such, even if these children constitute a suspect class, there is no equal protection violation.

B.

Father also contends that section 452.340.5 impinges upon unmarried parents' "fundamental right" to decide whether to lend financial support to their young adult children over whom they can legally exert no control. Fundamental rights include "the rights to free speech, to vote, to freedom of interstate travel, as well as other basic liberties." Mahoney v. Doerhoff Surgical Services, Inc., 807 S.W.2d 503, 512 (citing Kramer v. Union Free School Dist., 395 U.S. 621, 626, 89 S.Ct. 1886, 23 L.Ed.2d 583 (1969)). To be sure, the parent-child relationship is an "associational right ... of basic importance in our society," M.L.B. v. S.L.J., 519 U.S. 102, 116, 117 S.Ct. 555, 136 L.Ed.2d 473 (1996), however, a parent's financial obligations to his or her child are considered merely economic consequences that do not critically affect associational rights. See Rivera v. Minnich, 483 U.S. 574, 580, 107 S.Ct. 3001, 97 L.Ed.2d 473 (1987). Because father's asserted "right" involves only his economic, rather than his associational interests with his daughter, section 452.340.5 is not subject to strict judicial scrutiny. Although this question appears to be one of first impression in this state, the jurisdictions that have considered it have held uniformly that a parent has no fundamental right to avoid providing support for his or her children past age eighteen. Curtis v. Kline, 542 Pa. 249, 666 A.2d 265, 268 (1995); Birchfield v. Birchfield, 417 N.W.2d 891, 893-94 (S.D.1988); In re Marriage of Vrban, 293 N.W.2d 198, 201 (Iowa 1980); Childers v. Childers, 89 Wash.2d 592, 575 P.2d 201, 209 (1978). In view of these precedents, and the absence of any case to the contrary, this Court declines to hold that section 452.340.5 impinges upon a fundamental right.

C.

Because section 452.340.5 involves no suspect classifications and impinges upon no fundamental right, it will withstand constitutional muster so long as it is rationally related to a legitimate state interest. Missourians for Tax Justice Educ. Project. 959 S.W.2d at 103. In that regard, legislation that touches only upon economic interests "carries with it a presumption of rationality that can only be overcome by a clear showing of arbitrariness and irrationality." Fust v. Attorney General for the State of Mo., 947 S.W.2d 424, 432 (Mo. banc 1997) (citing Hodel v. Indiana, 452 U.S. 314, 331, 101 S.Ct. 2376, 69 L.Ed.2d 40 (1981)). When undertaking rationality review, it is not the province of this Court "to question the wisdom, social desirability or economic policy underlying a statute as these are matters for the legislature's determination." Batek v. Curators of University of Missouri, 920 S.W.2d 895, 899 (Mo. banc 1996) (citing Winston v. Reorganized Sch. Dist. R-2, 636 S.W.2d 324, 327 (Mo. banc 1982)).

Mother correctly asserts that the state has a legitimate interest in securing higher education opportunities for children from broken homes. As this Court stated in Leahy v. Leahy, 858 S.W.2d 221 (Mo. banc 1993), "[t]he children of an existing marriage derive many benefits that [children] of a dissolved marriage [are] deprived of sharing," id. at 230, and therefore, the state has a legitimate interest in "protecting the children of a marriage that is dissolved." Id. at 229. Section 452.340 rationally advances that legitimate state interest by requiring financially capable parents to...