Posted on 01/12/2005 6:35:37 AM PST by GMMAC
Court tells doctor to foot daughter's med school bill
Last Updated Wed, 12 Jan 2005 08:59:20 EST
CBC News
SURREY, B.C. - British Columbia's highest court has ruled that a doctor must pay 50 per cent of the cost of putting his 23-year-old daughter through medical school, referring to the money as "child support."
The decision by the province's Court of Appeal could set a precedent because previous decisions have decreed that parents with sufficient means are responsible only for seeing their children through undergraduate degree programs.
As far as the courts were concerned, adult children have been on their own when it came to paying for postgraduate education in most circumstances.
The doctor at the centre of the case, William Neufeld, is angry that he must shell out as much as $22,000 a year to see his daughter Jennifer through at least three years of medical school at the University of Calgary.
"It's just very wrong to teach the children of this province that if they happen to be the children of a person who makes more than an average amount of money, they can just sit on their ass and do absolutely nothing and expect to be paid for it, as long as they're making good marks," he told the Vancouver Province Tuesday.
In making the ruling, one judge referred to Jennifer as "an exemplary student."
The appeals court based its ruling on the fact that a separation agreement Neufeld signed after splitting with Jennifer's mother Barbara in 1999 did not set a cap on his educational support for either Jennifer or her younger brother.
Barbara Neufeld's only income is from spousal support, the ruling noted.
The ruling also took into account William Neufeld's income of $170,000 a year, and said it might have come to a different conclusion for a child "simply going to college because there is nothing better to do."
A lawyer acting for Barbara Neufeld said adult children would be unlikely to receive such support in future court rulings if they took a long break between degrees or went back to school to pursue a second career at some point later in life.
Guess that's probably not the original title of the article (although I agree with your sentiments).
While I don't agree with the government (ours or theirs) requiring this man to pay for his daughter's schooling, I can't understand why he wouldn't want to. His daughter is following in his footsteps. He knows how hard it is to pay for medical school. If he has the means to help her out, why wouldn't he want to?
If I was sued by my son (or daughter) to have me put them through school I'd be leaving my estate to Fluffy the cat.
Barbara Neufeld's only income is from spousal support, the ruling noted.
Barbara is the doctor's ex-wife and Jennifer, the daughter, has a younger brother--who may also be in college--article doesn't say.
Coming to America soon - democrats are nothing more than communists.
I have a feeling the real issue here is whether the daughter is saddled with her father's income when applying for financial aid from government schools, regardless whether he is actually supporting her or not. If she is so saddled, then the government schools get more money.
Can anyone tell me what principle of LAW is being applied in this case? I thought parental financial obligations ceased when a child became a legal adult. If a parent cannot tell an adult child what to do, how can an adult child tell a parent what to do?
He has an obligation to support his daughter after she turned 18? Wow... in Canada, the welfare state and the destruction of parental rights have been elevated to a whole new level.
I don't know about Canada, but in the United States Child Support is NOT tax deductible.
Steve - you haven't been divorced, have you? No. If you had, you wouldn't find this case out of the ordinary at all. In fact, it sounds to me as though they were pretty lenient on the good Doctor. After all, he gets to pay his wife to live in the style she was accustomed to while married to him, plus he gets to pay for his daughter to enjoy his profession.
Had he been down here in the States, he'd be working a second job under the table just to pay rent in some $hithole since the ex and her new boyfriend got the house, and his child support would come to nearly 95% of his income.
Law? What Court cares about the Law? What are you, some kind of romantic idealist?
Indeed.
I'd think that at a 50% tax rate, $22,000 a year is more like a $44,000 payment.
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