As reported by The Star-Ledger for nj.com, the father of an adult child has been ordered by a two-judge appellate panel in Middlesex County to pay half of her law school tuition and expenses, though she has chosen a school he did not recommend that she attend and the two have been estranged for some time.
According to the judges, the order upholds the terms of J.L.'s divorce from P.R.
J.L., a Rutgers University history professor, claims to have agreed at the time of his divorce to manage half of his daughter's college expenses only if she attended Rutgers.
The two-judge appellate panel held up a lower panel's earlier decision. J.L. must now pay $122,000; which is half of her tuition at Cornell Law School.
Daniel H. Brown, P.R.'s attorney, commented, "I was expecting (the decision) based on the tenor of the oral arguments. You could read the tealeaves. The parties negotiated the settlement as to what their respective obligations would be. The parties can agree to support the child and that's exactly what occurred here."
Edward S. Snyder, who represented J.L. in the matter, refused to comment to reporters.
J.L. and P.R. divorced in 2009. The family lived in Highland Park before the divorce.
According to the suit, at the time of their divorce they both agreed to each pay half of their daughter's education with the stipulation that she maintain a C average, or better, grade.
However, after her parents divorced their child stopped speaking to J.L.
J.L. stated that before the end of his 26-year marriage his daughter had just graduated from Rutgers. It wasn't until three years later, in 2012, that she chose to enroll in law school.
Another provision of the original agreement, according to J.L., was that his daughter was to enroll in law school within two years of her graduation. However, she failed to do that and instead took a break from school and began working full time.
While father and daughter were estranged, J.L. agreed to give her her up to $7,500 a year if she chose Rutgers law school over Cornell, and remained living at home. She chose Cornell.
The judges sided with the daughter; the divorce agreement did not stipulate where their daughter was to attend law school.
J.L. argued that since his daughter wasn't speaking to him, now that she needed post-graduate funds, he wasn't obliged to pay for it as it wasn't specifically stated that way in the divorce.
The judges again sided with the daughter.
The National Law Journal originally reported an opinion written by Judges Joseph Yannotti and Victor Ashrafi.
The daughter is referred to as "J" in the case.
Brown believes that J.L. will not be filing another appeal.
This is a rare family law case as its in regards to an adult child. However, whatever your issue may be – child support, child custody or spousal support – contact a family law attorney to best serve your needs right away!