TOM JAMES: Adult children suing parents for child support: Frivolous lawsuit or logical extension of the law?

By now, everyone must have read the news articles about Rachel Canning, the 18-year-old New Jersey woman who is suing her parents to require them to continue to pay her private school tuition, and also to pay her tuition and living expenses while she attends college. . . . Why didn’t he just dismiss the whole thing, they wonder.

What many people do not know is that New Jersey and a growing number of states (Alabama, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah and Washington) have enacted laws that either authorize or require courts to order a noncustodial parent to pay a child’s college expenses, as part of the parent’s “child support” obligation. . . .

Why do people become outraged if a court considers ordering married parents to pay for an adult child’s college education, but think nothing of — and in fact, through their legislators, require or encourage — court-ordered parental responsibility for the same kind of expense when the parent in question is a divorced or never-married one? The initial pleading in Rachel Canning’s case does not make an Equal Protection argument, but a pretty good one could be made. What legitimate state interest is served by discriminating against divorced and unwed parents with respect to a financial obligation of this magnitude? There is none. That being the case, it is only logical that an adult child should be able to sue her parents, whether they are unmarried or married, for her college costs and living expenses while attending college. . . .

Rachel Canning is not an aberration. She is exactly what people should expect when they give unbridled authority to their governments to micromanage family life.