In 1975, a New Jersey man named Melvin Newburgh was killed in an automobile accident. He was survived by his second wife Joan, and a 19 year old son by his first wife named Steven. He died without a will, and according to New Jersey law at the time, since he had died intestate, Steven, as his only son, was entitled to 2/3 of the estate and Joan, as his widow, was entitled to 1/3. The proceeds of the Estate were distributed in 1977, and everybody was happy. Then, in 1978, the Estate got a wrongful death settlement from the insurance company of the other drivers in the car accident in the amount of $100,000. Now, the fun began.
It seems that both Joan and Steven, now that there was real money involved, both began to think that maybe they shouldn’t have to share the payout…maybe the 2/3-1/3 distribution wasn’t quite so fair. Steven struck first, claiming that Joan (who had herself been married twice before) wasn’t legally married to his father. She had gotten a Mexican divorce from her first husband in 1962, which Steven claimed was invalid. Therefore, she wasn’t free to marry Melvin. (In those days, it was hard to get divorced in New Jersey and some other states, but easy to get divorced in Mexico, so couples wanting a divorce would often go to Mexico for that purpose.) Therefore, she wasn’t really his wife and not entitled to money from the wrongful death claim.
Joan struck back. The money from a lawful death claim, according to the law, is for the benefit of those who are being dependent for support by the dead individual at the time of his or her death. When poor Melvin died, though, Steven was an adult, over 18. He wasn’t Melvin’s legal responsibility any more, even though he was in college. The bum needed to get a job and stop trying to take Joan’s money.
Neither of them willing to budge on their positions, they did what people usually do in these situations, and took it to the court to settle. It went to the trial court, and appellate court, that I won’t get into here, and in 1982, it went to the New Jersey Supreme Court as Newburgh v Arrigo (Both Joan and Steven were Newburghs, although I guess Steven would have contested that. The Arrigos were the people who had caused the accident that killed Melvin, and therefore the defendants in the lawful death suit, but, other than setting things into motion, aren’t involved in this story.) It was up to the worthies of the New Jersey Supreme Court to decide.
First, it dealt with Steven’s claim against Joan (that the Mexican divorce was invalid). The court said that they weren’t really in any position to know what happened in Mexico 20 years ago, but that there’s a presumption that marriages are valid. It was up to Steven to show that the divorce, and therefore Melvin and Joan’s marriage was invalid, and he didn’t really do that. Melvin and Joan certainly thought they were married…they had a public wedding ceremony, they filed jointly on their taxes, she played golf at his country club. As far as everybody knew, they were married, and the court had no reason to disbelieve it. Steven had to proof they weren’t, and he couldn’t. So much for his claim.
Now, what about Joan’s claim that Steven, being over 18 at the time of Melvin’s death, wasn’t being supported by Melvin? The court now looked at that.
The law says that a parent has the legal obligation to support his child until the child is emancipated. There are multiple ways this can happen. The child can get married. The child can join the military. The courts can decide that emancipation is in the child’s best interest. But, with a few exceptions, children under 18 usually not emancipated. So, what happens when a child turns 18.
Well, generally, a parent doesn’t have to support a child once they reach the age of majority. However, a parent has the obligation to give their child a necessary education. There are a bunch of cases, the court notices, where after a divorce, a college student is awarded support from the non-custodial parent. The court starts to consider why this is.
In the past, says the court, college educations were reserved for the elite, but now, we’re living in a time where there are all sorts of colleges, able to provide post secondary education at an affordable cost for almost everyone. Some parents can’t pay for their kids tuition, and some can only pay for part of it, and some can pay for all of it. But generally, the court says, if the parents are financially capable, they should contribute to the higher education of their children who are capable students. In appropriate circumstances, parental responsibility includes the duty to assure children of a higher education and even a post graduate one.
There are certain factors the courts should use to determine this; whether the parent, if he were still living with the child, would have contributed, the effect of the background and values of the parent on the reasonableness of the child’s expectation for college. the amount of the contribution sought, the financial resources of the parents and the kid, the aptitude of the child for education, the child’s ability to earn income, the existence of loans and grants, the relationship between parent and child, and the way college will or will not help the child meet their long term goals.
So given all this, the Supreme Court sent the case back down to the trial court, so it could find out if Steven had, given the above factors, proven the likelihood of Melvin contributing to his educations…whether Steven was, under those circumstances, still dependent.