Parents cannot waive child support in a divorce and custody matter, the Maryland Supreme Court held Friday in rejecting both parents’ united contention that their inability to waive child support violated their constitutional rights.
In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Angela Eaves, the Maryland Supreme Court affirmed that parents may not bilaterally agree to withdraw child support and that the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court did not violate the constitutional rights of Erica Hall and Nicholas Houser when the trial court rejected their agreement to waive child support and arrears for their 6-year-old child.
Hall and Houser, who married in 2012 but have since separated, asked the high court in March to remand their case to the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court so that their agreement specifying no court-ordered child support could be incorporated. Counsel for the parents, both co-petitioners in the case, contended imposing child support when the parents agreed otherwise violates their rights as parents to make decisions about their child.
During oral argument and in the high court’s opinion, Eaves pushed back on the parents’ argument, writing that the legal obligation to support a minor child is also a moral one.
“The parties’ argument that court-ordered child support violates their constitutional rights conflates the notions of parental rights and parental obligations,” Eaves wrote. “The custody, care, and upbringing of one’s child is a parental right, but child support … is a parental obligation.”
In its opinion, the high court wrote that the circuit court “did not in any way interject itself into the parties’ decisions on how to raise [their child], or direct how any court-ordered child support must be spent” on the child, but rather “merely ensured that [the child] received access to the financial support to which he legally is entitled.”
Though Hall and Houser argued the downward deviation was appropriate because Houser waived his interest in the marital home and he would be doing the majority of driving their son between locations, Eaves wrote that the parents failed to show why a downward deviation is warranted. As such, Eaves wrote, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that it was not in the child’s best interest to receive no child support.
Mandy Miliman, counsel for Houser, said she and her client are disappointed but respect the high court’s decision.
“We were fighting an uphill battle to begin with, but it was certainly an important one because the question for the court to determine was really what is the scope of a parent’s right and the ability to make a decision that they believe is best for their child, versus the court’s imposition of its own belief on how a child should be best supported,” Miliman said in a phone call Monday.
Miliman said the parents believed the case and argument is an important one, where parents who are fit to make decisions on behalf of their children should be allowed to do so. She added that while the state also has an interest in ensuring parents support their children, she hoped this case would start the conversation for parents looking to enter into similar agreements.
Charles Muskin, counsel for Hall, said the impact of the high court’s decision is far more reaching than it intended.
“They’re basically saying that the legislature has the authority to tell parents what to do,” Muskin said of the court. “We strongly disagree with [the Maryland Supreme Court’s] position. As long as parents provide adequate care for their children, we see no reason how the state has the authority to interfere in any way.”
The Maryland State Bar Association and Maryland Office of the Attorney General each submitted amicus briefs in opposition of the parents’ argument, contending the trial court’s child support order did not infringe the parents’ fundamental right to direct their child’s upbringing.
Martha White, partner at Wasserman White Family Law, said the court’s ruling is in line with what Maryland law has long held.
“I think that the big takeaway is that if the parties are in agreement about a general charge of child support, great, but you’ve got to make sure that it makes sense with Maryland law,” White said. “The court was not provided with sufficient reasons why this is in the child’s best interest rather than the parents’ best interest.”
According to the opinion, Hall and Houser’s case is an above-guidelines case, where their combined income exceeded $15,000 per month. The parties calculated Houser’s child support arrears at approximately $41,708.
Miliman said her client has no plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, and Muskin agreed that his client does not have any plans to at least petition for review from the nation’s highest court on her own.
What’s left, Miliman said, is the fear that litigants in similar situations have lost all power.
“I think one of the unfortunate impacts of this ruling is that courts are most likely now going to sua sponte order child support even if it wasn’t pled, and I think that’s going to take away the ability of family law litigants to deliberately decide not to involve the courts in a child support decision.”