In Ricci v. Ricci, the trial court ordered the parents of Caitlyn Ricci, a 23 year old who had left her mother’s home at age 19 to live with her grandparents, to pay her college expenses. In a comprehensive opinion on Feb. 9, 2017, the Appellate Division remanded for a plenary hearing and factual analysis of the factors related to emancipation and payment of support.

First, the court concluded that Ricci had the right to intervene in her parents’ matrimonial action to attack their joint decision that she was “emancipated.” The parents’ obligation to pay college expenses, and the related issue of whether an adult child (one over the age of 18) is emancipated, usually arise in a matrimonial dispute when the parents disagree, and one parent seeks to have the other pay all or part of college expenses. If, as our law provides, “a parent is obliged to contribute to the basic support needs of an unemancipated child to the extent of the parent’s financial ability,” it should not matter whether the issue arises during the parents’ dispute, and children of an intact family should be no worse off than children of a failed marriage—just as the children of failed marriages should be no worse off than children of intact marriages. But the circumstances leading to such disputes do not frequently arise in intact marriages.

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