Article on Filial Responsibility Laws

Mari Park (2014J.D. Candidate, Texas Tech University School of Law) recently published anarticle entitled, The Parent Trap: Health Care & Retirement Corporationof America v. Pittas, How It Reinforced Filial Responsibility Laws and WhetherFilial Responsibility Laws Can Really Make You Pay, 5 Est. Plan. &Cmty. Prop. L.J. 441 (Summer 2013).  Provided below is the introduction toher article:

Parentsspend hundreds of thousands of dollars raising and supporting their children,usually without asking for anything in return.  Unless the fully-grownchildren are later (somehow) tricked into it, most of them will not need tosupport their aging parents.  However, what happens when elderly parentscan no longer support themselves?  Many elderly require long-term care incostly nursing homes, and the bills add up quickly.  What happens whenthey can no longer afford these costs?  Are children responsible for thecosts of taking care of their parents?  In Pennsylvania—or one of theother twenty-eight states with filial responsibility laws—the answer is yes;the children may be held responsible.

InHealth Care & Retirement Corporation of America v. Pittas, aPennsylvania court of appeals recently held that John was liable for hismother’s $93,000 bill for long-term care in a nursing home.  With thisdecision, the court reinforced the state’s filial responsibility law thatrequires adult children to support their aging parents.

Thiscomment will address filial responsibility laws and the various ways they mayaffect adult children who are unaware of such laws.  First, a discussionof Pittas will introduce a common situation in which children could beheld liable for their parents’ long-term care costs.  Part II.B willpresent an overview of Pennsylvania’s filial responsibility law as well as thehistory behind it.  Part III will address the twenty-eight other stateswith similar statutes and discuss the pros and cons of having and enforcingfilial responsibility.  Part IV will focus on Texas, which does not have afilial responsibility statute, and recommend that Texas should adopt a similarlaw.