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Kids/Education Costs & the Law
I think that many of you will find this article very interesting........
Children must pay for school, court rules
KIRK MAKIN
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Children of divorced parents should foot a major portion of the bill for financing their postsecondary education, the Ontario Court of Appeal said yesterday.
The court ruled 2-1 that rather than seeing their estranged parents stuck with the bill, two Toronto brothers must spend not just their summer-job earnings, but a substantial portion of a nest egg left them by their deceased grandfather, on their university costs.
The ruling places a greater burden on grown children to take responsibility for their educational choices and expenses, family law experts argued yesterday.
"I think the Court of Appeal is essentially saying that kids must contribute all they earn to their education after taking out reasonable living expenses," Grant Gold said.
The Toronto family lawyer added: "This puts a real onus on children to contribute to their education."
University of Toronto law professor Carol Rogerson said that the significance of the ruling lies in its emphasis on the diversion of a child's capital assets into his or her education expenses.
The case arose from an application by a Toronto woman, Deborah Lewi, to modify a long-standing child-support order. Ms. Lewi wanted her ex-husband -- Harvey Lewi, a senior executive at IBM whose salary exceeds $180,000 annually -- to foot the full cost of a university education for their children, Brandon and Darren.
The couple separated in 1996, and Ms. Lewi has seen her fortunes and health deteriorate steadily since.
Mr. Lewi, who has no relationship with his children, argued that he should not be required to pay extra educational expenses beyond what he already pays in regular child support.
In a 2002 settlement, his child-support payments were set at $2,073 a month per child.
One of the brothers, 21-year-old Darren, is a University of Toronto student who commutes to school from his mother's home. Brandon, 19, lives in residence at the University of Western Ontario and intends to attend an expensive business school.
In their majority judgment yesterday, Mr. Justice Russell Juriansz and Mr. Justice Robert Blair said that decisions about who pays for postsecondary education normally depend on an assessment of what a family would most likely have done had it stayed together.
They said that trial judges should balance the means of each family member in arriving at a fair split of education costs.
"In my view, the amount of child support that a parent is ordered to pay should be determined, as a general rule, on the expectation that a child with means -- in this case, independent assets -- will contribute something from those means toward his or her postsecondary school education," the majority said. "The extent of that contribution depends on the circumstances of the case."
They calculated that Darren will probably use up just under half of his $41,821 in capital assets by the end of his university career. Because of his higher anticipated expenses, they said that Brandon will likely deplete his $41,822 nest egg by significantly more.
In dissenting reasons, Madam Justice Eileen Gillese said it was unfair to deplete the children's savings so dramatically. "In the circumstances, the amounts create a disincentive for children to save gifts of money," she remarked.
But the majority judges stressed that Brandon, in particular, "is an adult who is responsible for the choices he has made. He has chosen to go to university out of town at much greater cost."
Prof. Rogerson said it was disturbing to see the court single out a child -- as it did with Brandon -- to bear a major responsibility for an educational choice, since that isn't what would typically happen if a family remained intact.
"It's a very individualistic view of family relationships," Prof. Rogerson said. "The whole basis behind child-support obligations is to duplicate what would have happened had a marriage not broken down."
Children must pay for school, court rules
KIRK MAKIN
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Children of divorced parents should foot a major portion of the bill for financing their postsecondary education, the Ontario Court of Appeal said yesterday.
The court ruled 2-1 that rather than seeing their estranged parents stuck with the bill, two Toronto brothers must spend not just their summer-job earnings, but a substantial portion of a nest egg left them by their deceased grandfather, on their university costs.
The ruling places a greater burden on grown children to take responsibility for their educational choices and expenses, family law experts argued yesterday.
"I think the Court of Appeal is essentially saying that kids must contribute all they earn to their education after taking out reasonable living expenses," Grant Gold said.
The Toronto family lawyer added: "This puts a real onus on children to contribute to their education."
University of Toronto law professor Carol Rogerson said that the significance of the ruling lies in its emphasis on the diversion of a child's capital assets into his or her education expenses.
The case arose from an application by a Toronto woman, Deborah Lewi, to modify a long-standing child-support order. Ms. Lewi wanted her ex-husband -- Harvey Lewi, a senior executive at IBM whose salary exceeds $180,000 annually -- to foot the full cost of a university education for their children, Brandon and Darren.
The couple separated in 1996, and Ms. Lewi has seen her fortunes and health deteriorate steadily since.
Mr. Lewi, who has no relationship with his children, argued that he should not be required to pay extra educational expenses beyond what he already pays in regular child support.
In a 2002 settlement, his child-support payments were set at $2,073 a month per child.
One of the brothers, 21-year-old Darren, is a University of Toronto student who commutes to school from his mother's home. Brandon, 19, lives in residence at the University of Western Ontario and intends to attend an expensive business school.
In their majority judgment yesterday, Mr. Justice Russell Juriansz and Mr. Justice Robert Blair said that decisions about who pays for postsecondary education normally depend on an assessment of what a family would most likely have done had it stayed together.
They said that trial judges should balance the means of each family member in arriving at a fair split of education costs.
"In my view, the amount of child support that a parent is ordered to pay should be determined, as a general rule, on the expectation that a child with means -- in this case, independent assets -- will contribute something from those means toward his or her postsecondary school education," the majority said. "The extent of that contribution depends on the circumstances of the case."
They calculated that Darren will probably use up just under half of his $41,821 in capital assets by the end of his university career. Because of his higher anticipated expenses, they said that Brandon will likely deplete his $41,822 nest egg by significantly more.
In dissenting reasons, Madam Justice Eileen Gillese said it was unfair to deplete the children's savings so dramatically. "In the circumstances, the amounts create a disincentive for children to save gifts of money," she remarked.
But the majority judges stressed that Brandon, in particular, "is an adult who is responsible for the choices he has made. He has chosen to go to university out of town at much greater cost."
Prof. Rogerson said it was disturbing to see the court single out a child -- as it did with Brandon -- to bear a major responsibility for an educational choice, since that isn't what would typically happen if a family remained intact.
"It's a very individualistic view of family relationships," Prof. Rogerson said. "The whole basis behind child-support obligations is to duplicate what would have happened had a marriage not broken down."
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