Our Vancouver step parent child support and BC child support lawyers handle all types of natural and step parent child support cases. We have won key appeals where the respective duties of a natural parent and a step parent are considered and weighed. Our step parent support lawyers also look at cases where the relationship between a parent and a child is strained and in cases of adult children what is that child’s duty in a step parent child support case to help contribute to their education.
What Is A Step Parent’s Child Support Obligation If The Natural Parent Is Broke?
A recent BC Appeal court step parent child support case determined that a step parent who unilaterally terminated the relationship with his step son had to pay full guideline support for the child as the natural father earned too little to pay any child support at all. The case dealt with the respective obligations of a natural father and a step parent child support parent and at the very end of the decision talked about a child having a duty to try to contribute to at least their books and tuition.
(20) With respect to the obligation of a step-parent, Bracken J. was obviously satisfied that Mr. Anderson is unable to assist in Colby’s financial support. This being the case, the burden must fall on Mr. Arndt and Ms. Shaw. As stated in H.(U.V.) v. H.(M.W.) 2008 BCCA 177:
… At the other end of the spectrum, where the three (or more) parents’ Guidelines “contributions” together are needed to provide the children with a reasonable standard of living, then both the stepparent and the non-custodial parent(s) may well be required to pay full Guidelines amounts. Or, where one of the natural or adoptive parents is not present or is unable to pay any support, the stepparent may well have to pay his or her full table amount. The Legislature has left it to the judgment of trial and chambers judges in the first instance to fashion orders that are “appropriate” under s. 5. At the same time, the Guidelines system is not thereby jettisoned in favour of a ‘wide open’ discretion. The inquiry must, like the Guidelines themselves, focus on the children and their needs. [At para. 41; emphasis added.]
(See also s. 147(4) and (5) of the Family Law Act and Sullivan v. Struck 2015 BCCA 521 at paras. 80-4.) I would not accede to Mr. Arndt’s argument on this point.
(21) Mr. Arndt’s primary complaint, however, seems to be that he has “no relationship” with Colby. He says he should therefore not be expected to support Colby – whom he describes as “delinquent” in pursuing an education and lacking any particular job objective. Clearly, Mr. Arndt finds this particularly irksome given that his income is, he says, much reduced from the $70,000 fixed by the order of August 2013.
What If A Step Parent And Child Have No Relationship- Does That Mean No Child Support?
The case law is clear that only in the most extreme of cases will an estrangement of child and step parent or natural parent mean no child support is payable.
[22] The issue of the disassociation between Mr. Arndt and Colby brings us to Farden, a decision of Master Joyce in chambers dated June 8, 1993. In that case, the Master stated that while the pursuit of education “can be sufficient cause” to render a child unable to withdraw from the parent’s charge or obtain the necessaries of life, that will not always be the case. In his analysis, that question required an examination of all the circumstances in each case, including:
(1) whether the child is in fact enrolled in a course of studies and whether it is a full time or part time course of studies;
(2) whether or not the child has applied for, or is eligible for, student loans or other financial assistance;
(3) the career plans of the child, i.e., whether the child has some reasonable and appropriate plan or is simply going to college because there is nothing better to do;
(4) the ability of the child to contribute to his own support through part-time employment;
(5) the age of the child;
(6) the child’s past academic performance, whether the child is demonstrating success in the chosen course of studies;
(7) what plans the parents made for the education of their children, particularly where those plans were made during cohabitation;
(8) at least in the case of a mature child who has reached the age of majority, whether or not the child has unilaterally terminated a relationship from the parent from whom support is sought. [At para. 15.]
(23) The Master found the evidence in Farden insufficient to establish that the child was “pursuing, in a reasonable way, a course of studies which may lead to some appropriate career. He is proceeding with his further education at what I consider to be a leisurely pace.” The child had not shown he was unable to work part-time while pursuing his (part-time) course load and there was no evidence as to what efforts he had made to find employment. In the result, the Master concluded that “quite apart from the question of the lack of relationship between father and son, the evidence fails to establish that the son is at this time a ‘child of the marriage.’” (At para. 18; my emphasis.) The son’s “total unwillingness to attempt to reinstate any relationship” with his father was said to be an additional factor which the Master was entitled to take into account in dismissing the mother’s application for child support.
(24) The Master also quoted from Law v. Law (1986) 2 R.F.L. (3d) 458 (Ont. S.C.), where Fleury L.J.S.C. stated:
In the case at bar, Kimberley Ruth Law has reached the age of 22. She has not seen fit to contact her father to keep him appraised [sic] of her progress in university and no evidence was made available to the respondent until he unilaterally ceased making maintenance payments for her benefit when she turned 21 in 1985. … Kimberley has certainly withdrawn from the applicant’s charge as a result of her failure to maintain any contact with him. Although it is sufficient that she be in the custodial parent’s charge, I am of the view that where, as here, a mature child unilaterally terminates a relationship with one of the parents without any apparent reason, that is a factor to be considered by the trial judge in determining whether it would be “fit and just” to provide maintenance for that child. A father-child relationship is more than a simple economic dependency. The father is burdened with heavy financial responsibilities and the child has very few duties in return. It seems reasonable to demand that a child who expects to receive support entertain some type of relationship with his or her father in the absence of any conduct by the father which might justify the child’s neglect of his or her filial duties. [At 462-3; emphasis added.]
(25) Farden has not been interpreted by courts in this province or elsewhere as providing a set of iron-clad requirements that must be met by older children who propose to pursue education with financial assistance from their parents. In Darlington v. Darlington (1997) 32 R.F.L. (4th) 406, this court made it clear that there need not be evidence on all of the factors in order to establish that a child is a “child of the marriage” because she is pursuing an education. In Neufeld v. Neufeld 2005 BCCA 7, Levine J.A. for the Court stated that the factors listed in Farden “are not a set of minimum criteria all of which must be satisfied.” Rather, she said, they are factors to be considered, along with others. (At para 22.) Neither case concerned estranged children.
[26] In A.C. v. M.Z. 2010 ONSC 6473, Mr. Justice Pazaratz provided an extensive review on the law relating to estranged adult children, beginning at para. 107. He noted at para. 130 that Law v. Law was decided under the former Divorce Act, R.S.C. 1970, c. D-8, which listed “conduct of the parties” as a factor to be considered in setting child support under s. 11. This factor was not repeated in s. 15.1 of the Divorce Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. 3 (2nd Supp.) or in the Federal Child Support Guidelines, SOR/97-175. Indeed, he observed, there were strong public policy reasons why “conduct” is generally not determinative of, or relevant to, spousal support; and those reasons also resonate with respect to child support. In his analysis:
We recognize that spousal support is intended to address financial realities and consequences, unrelated to post-separation attitudes and feelings. We no longer ask whether a needy spouse deserves to receive money. Why then do we invite inquiry as to whether a needy adult child deserves to receive money?
And if we are going to consider evidence of the current relationship between the adult child and the estranged parent, how much background information; how much context; how much unpleasantness and recrimination do we want to invite in an otherwise “no fault” system? Parent-child relationships are complex even with intact family units. Current problems and rifts always have antecedents, whether apparent or not.
In the case at bar, the Respondent does not want to pay support for the three oldest children primarily because none of them are on speaking terms with him. But none of the four children have been on speaking terms with him for about a decade. Is it the children’s fault in 2010? Was it the children’s fault in 2000? At what age; at what stage, did the onus shift to each child to assume responsibility for a parental relationship whose flaws were perhaps decades in the making? [At paras. 140-2; emphasis added.]
(27) The Court cited various other cases in which child estrangement was considered – Bradley v. Zaba (1996) 137 Sask. R. 295 (C.A.), Smith v. Smith (2010) 79 R.F.L. (6th) 166 (Sask. Q.B.), Wahl v. Wahl 2000 ABQB 10, Olszewski v. Willick 2009 SKCA 133, Knight v. Knight 2009 BCSC 1851, and Hrechka v. Andries (2003) 38 R.F.L. (5th) 246 (Man. Q.B.). In Rebenchuk v. Rebenchuk, 2007 MBCA 22, Chief Justice Scott observed:
Termination of the parent/child relationship is a particularly difficult issue. In my view, selfish or ungrateful children who reject the non-custodial parent without justification should not expect to be supported through their years of higher education. But this factor rarely stands alone as the sole ground for denying support unless the situation is “extremely grave” (Pepin v. Jung, [2003] O.J. No. 1779 (S.C.J.)(QL)). [At para. 56; emphasis added.]
[28] In Athwal v. Athwal 2007 BCSC 221, the Court was dealing with a breakdown in the father-child relationship that had continued for over a decade. Mr. Justice Ralph ruled that the child was nevertheless a “child of the marriage” and observed:
What makes the present application to continue child support difficult to assess is the origin of deeply rooted and long-standing alienation of Ramonique from her father. It was the subject of extensive diagnosis and counselling when she was a young child, but the professional assistance and Ramonique’s maturing have not overcome the problem. While I recognize that, as a result, Mr. Athwal has remained removed from his daughter’s life for ten years, there is an absence of evidence that Ramonique’s continuing alienation from her father reflects a considered decision, as in the Marsland case, rather than the remains of a long-standing alienation which has not been overcome.
I have concluded that, in all the circumstances of this application, Ramonique remains a “child of the marriage” and despite the absence of a relationship between Mr. Athwal and Ramonique, Mr. Athwal has a continuing obligation to pay child support to his daughter. She has a continuing need for support; she has only recently reached the age of majority, her educational program appears to be sound and she is not self-supporting. [At paras. 52-3; emphasis added.]
[29] The Court in A.C. v. M.Z. also referred to a paper written by Mr. Justice David Corbett entitled Child Support for Estranged Adult Children in 2010, who reached the following conclusions:
(a) Contrary to certain recent literature, there has not been “growing judicial recognition” that the quality of the relationship should have a bearing on child support.
(b) Courts have been willing to impose a few specific responsibilities on adult support recipients, and may properly do so, but not conditions that include maintaining a social relationship with a parent.
(c) The statutory basis for taking the quality of the child-parent relationship into account is dubious.
(d) There is appellant authority permitting the court to place some weight on the parent-child relationship, but that authority is more ambiguous than trial and motions court decisions suggest.
(e) On the current state of the law, there seems to be a discretion to take this factor into account, though few courts do, and fewer have found it a significant factor in a support decision.
(f) The better view is that if conduct is ever relevant, it should only be in truly egregious cases of misconduct by a child against a parent. [At para. 172; emphasis added.]
In my view, this summary provides a useful description of the current law concerning the estrangement of adult children from their parents.
(30) In any event, the facts of this case bear little resemblance to those in Farden. Here we have a child who was obviously having some difficulty in handling several academic courses at once but who has the intellectual capability to do well in them. He is now enrolled at the University of Victoria – presumably for a full-time course load. Fortunately, he is able to live with his mother while attending. There is no evidence that he “unilaterally terminated” his relationship with Mr. Arndt; rather, it appears Mr. Arndt purported to “disown” his stepsons in the course of a trivial dispute. No doubt the relationship between Colby and Mr. Arndt is complicated by the fact that Mr. Arndt is not Colby’s father but his stepfather. Mr. Arndt has persisted in maintaining that Colby’s father is working and earning money, but that has been found not to be the case. Mr. Arndt appears to resent the fact that his stepsons are supportive of their mother – a position that is hardly surprising. If Mr. Arndt were to consider Colby’s viewpoint, he might realize that he himself may have played a role in pushing Colby away. He, Mr. Arndt, is the adult in this relationship and should act accordingly.
(31) The unsatisfactory relationship is not an excuse for Mr. Arndt’s failure to pay child support; nor is it a reason why Colby should not be regarded as a child of the marriage. Many parents or step-parents have troubled relationships with their children, but by virtue of their youth, children still have to be supported, in whole or in part, in obtaining training or degrees that will allow them to become self-sufficient. The final ‘Farden factor’ may justify the cessation of support in rare cases, but this case does not begin to approach the egregious circumstances in which a cut-off of support would be justified.
What About A Child’s Duty To Contribute To Support Through Getting A Job?
(32) By the same token, it appears that, as the chambers judge observed, Colby has been pursuing his education at a “leisurely pace”. No reason was offered as to why this is, or why he has not obtained summer employment. At some point in the near- to mid-term, he should be expected to contribute at least to his fees and related educational expenses. At this point, however, he is in his first year of university and taking a full course load. Mr. Arndt has not shown that he is unable to succeed there, or that the young man’s present objectives are unrealistic.
(33) No error on the part of the chambers judge having been shown, I would dismiss the appeal.
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