Parent Liability Child's Act
| Author | Jeffrey Wilson |
| Pages | 817-821 |
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Parental liability is the term used to refer to a parent's obligation to pay for damage done by negligent, intentional, or criminal acts of that parent's child. In most states, parents are responsible for all malicious or willful property damage done by their children. Parental liability usually ends when the child reaches the age of majority and does not begin until the child reaches an age of between eight and ten. Laws vary from state to state regarding the monetary thresholds on damages collected, the age limit of the child, and the inclusion of personal injury in the tort claim. Hawaii enacted, more than a century before statehood, such legislation in 1846, and its law remains one of the most broadly applied in that it does not limit the financial bounds of recovery and imposes liability for both negligent and intentional torts by underage persons. Laws making parents criminally responsible for the delinquent acts of their children followed civil liability statutes. In 1903, Colorado became the first state to establish the crime of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Today, most states have laws relating to parental liability in various applications. Children's offenses can be civil and/or criminal in nature. Civil cases are lawsuits for money damages. The government brings criminal cases for violations of criminal law. Many acts can trigger both civil and criminal legal repercussions.
A minor is a person under the age of majority. The age of majority is the age at which a minor, in the eyes of the law, becomes an adult. This age is 18 in most states. In a few other states, the age of majority is 19 or 21. A minor is considered to be a resident of the same state as the minor's custodial parent or guardian.
Each state has its own law regarding parents' financial responsibility for the acts of their children. Parents are responsible for their children's harmful actions much the same way that employers are responsible for the harmful actions of their employees. This legal concept is known a vicarious liability. The parent is vicariously liable, despite not being directly responsible for the injury. A number of states hold parents financially responsible for damages caused
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by their children. Some of these states, however, place limits on the amount of liability. The laws vary from state to state, but many cover such acts as vandalism to government or school property; defacement or destruction of the national and state flags, cemetery headstones, public monuments/historical markers; also, property destroyed in hate crimes, based on race or religion, such as ransacking a synagogue. Personal injury in connection with any of these may also be included.
Each year thousands of teenage girls, some as young as 12, enter into the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) system because they become pregnant. These girls are eligible to receive welfare benefits for their children because the fathers are almost always noncustodial. Many of the fathers are also teenagers still attending high school and are frequently unable to pay child support because of their lack of income. These cases, commonly called "minor-mother" cases, are automatically referred to the state child support enforcement agency by the welfare department. When the agency receives a minor-mother referral, it begins legal proceedings against three parties: the father of the minor-mother, the mother of the minor-mother, and the father of the minor-mother's child. Because the parents of minor-mothers are legally responsible to support their daughters until emancipation, they must pay child support for their minor-mother daughters. The Welfare Reform Act has enacted important changes for teenage parents and minor-mothers. In order for a minor-mother to be eligible to receive AFDC benefits, she must enroll in high school or a state-approved GED program and live under adult supervision. The Welfare Reform Act has thus eliminated the enticement of physical and financial independence from one's parents. Another significant change implemented by the Welfare Reform Act is that parents of a noncustodial teenage father (the grandparents of the minor-mother's...
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