State Division of Family Services v. Clark
| Decision Date | 17 September 1976 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 14132--14134,s. 14132--14134 |
| Citation | 554 P.2d 1310 |
| Parties | STATE DIVISION OF FAMILY SERVICES and JoAnn Lorraine Clark et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. Mark Thomas CLARK et al., Defendants and Respondents. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
Vernon B. Romney, Atty. Gen., Frank V. Nelson, Stephen G. Schwendiman, Asst. Attys. Gen., Salt Lake City, Robert L. Newey, Weber County Atty., Ernest W. Jones, Asst. Weber County Atty., Ogden, for appellants.
Martin W. Custen, of Weber County Legal Aid Services, Ogden, for respondents.
Three actions are combined here, in each of which the State Division of Family Services (herein called Family Services) joined with mothers of dependent children, who had been receiving support from Family Services, to initiate the actions against the defendant husband and father for reimbursement for the support that had been furnished their children. 1 The defense asserted with which we are concerned here is stated by the defendants that:
. . . the plaintiff (Family Services) has only those same rights as plaintiff obligee (the mother) has for securing reimbursement from the defendant . . . (and is) . . . not entitled to a judgment for a sum certain without first obtaining a court order specifying the amount of monthly support.
The district court sustained that contention and granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant husband and father in each case. Plaintiffs appeal.
The defendants do not deny that they have a duty to support their children. Their argument in support of the defense above stated is: that the amount of their liability for support furnished their children is correlated to their ability to pay; and that because there has been no previous adjudication as to the amount each should pay, there is no foundation for entering the judgment sought against them, regardless of any amounts Family Services may have expended for the support of their children.
Defendants' argument fails to take into account the difference between the right of one who has furnished support to a child to have reimbursement, 2 as distinguished from an adjudication of the amount a father should pay for the current and future support of his children. 3 The complaints filed in each of these cases deal only with the former. They allege stated amounts that have been expended for the support and maintenance of the children of each of the defendants and ask reimbursement therefor; and that is the only issue we are dealing with in this case.
The universally recognized rule is that according to the common consent and customs of mankind one of the implied promises in the marriage contract is to support any children that may be born into the family. Even more fundamentally, the duty of parents to support their children derives from natural law. This has been recognized from the earliest times as a proposition of such incontestable correctness that it is neither subject to doubt nor in need of explanatory justification; and this is equally true of the corresponding right of a child to receive the support from his father. 4
This is supported by a plethora of authority, which includes that sanctified source of the common law, Blackstone:
The duty of parents to provide for the maintenance of their children is a principle of natural law; an obligation, says Puffendorf, laid on them not only by nature herself, but by their own proper act, in bringing them into the world; for they world be in the highest manner injurious to their issue, if they only gave their children life that they might afterwards see them perish. By begetting them, therefore, they have entered into a voluntary obligation to endeavor, as far as in them lies, that the life which they have bestowed shall be supported and preserved. 5
A similar expression was made by the greatly respected Chancellor Kent:
The wants and weaknesses of children render it necessary that some person maintain them, and the voice of nature has pointed out the parent as the most fit and proper person. The laws and customs of all nations have enforced this plain precept of universal law. 6
A necessary concomitant of the continuing and inalienable duty of parents to support their children is that if a child is left in need and a third party comes to the rescue and furnishes support, the latter is subrogated to the child's right and may obtain reimbursement therefor. 7 The right to reimbursement for one who furnishes that support when the father fails is set forth in what we regard as an excellent opinion by the late Chief Justice Ross of Arizona in the case of Barrett v. Barrett. 8 In pointing out that a father cannot escape the responsibility to support the children he has brought into the world, that jurist quotes the venerable authorities just referred to; and further states, that inasmuch as the father cannot do so by voluntary attempts, there certainly should be no reason why he should be relieved of that obligation by his misdeeds. Even if his misconduct may have worked a forfeiture of his right to custody, he should not gain any advantage from his own wrong, nor should it adversely affect the right of the child to support. 9
It is appropriate to observe that the principles just stated are not intended to provide a means of oppression or harassment of a parent who is attempting to support his child, nor to pressure him into furnishing luxuries or frivolities, nor yet to reward an intermeddler. 10 The purpose is to assist in assuring that help will not be withheld from children in necessitous circumstances. Nevertheless they should be furnished only those things which are reasonable and necessary, and this may sometimes vary according to the approximate standard of living. There is no suggestion of any departure from that standard in these cases.
On the basis of what has been said herein it is our conclusion that the trial court was in error in dismissing these actions; and that the plaintiffs, Division of Family Services, (and the mothers joined as plaintiffs) are entitled to a judgment against each defendant for the money that has been reasonably and necessarily expended in support of his children. 11
Remanded for further proceedings consistent with this decision. No costs awarded.
I concur in the result as it applies to this case and the statutory authority to sustain it. However, I would be disinclined to subscribe to the general proposition, as a principle, that as a concomitant of parental duty to support a child, 'if a child is left destitute and a third party comes to the rescue and furnishes support, the latter is subrogated to the child's right and may obtain reimbursement therefor.' 1
Such a principle easily could lead to inequities, in my opinion, and possibly open the door to officious, unsolicited meddling by relatives, who, by seizing an opportunity during periods of economic adversity or distress, could preserve, via the vehicle of a judgment, carrying with it an 8 per cent bonus, a club continually to be wielded as a weapon against a destitute father who may thereafter come into some kind of an estate subject to execution. Such might eventuate where one officiously furnishes part...
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