catwho wrote:
If you're a graduate student you're probably not a minor. Smiley: oyvey
That's the point. I'm arguing that these "damages" aren't "you broke my windshield and you have to replace it" but "you have a legal obligation to financially support this child, being divorced doesn't remove that responsibility". If it were the former, then it wouldn't matter if I were a minor, related or not, you would still owe me money for "damages".
Jophiel wrote:
That's asking me to prove a negative.
Asking to prove a negative doesn't automatically mean impossible or difficult. You are merely creating a cop-out from answering the question. Me asking you to prove that God doesn't exist isn't the same as asking you to prove that you are not a woman. Both are proving a negative, but one is much easier to do. In this case, proving that these damages aren't in reference to basic needs which can be done by proving that the damages are 100% something else.
Jophiel wrote:
Why don't you find me examples from some child support statutes defining it as limited to covering basic needs. For example, the Illinois law makes a clear reference to "the standard of living the child would have enjoyed had the marriage not been dissolved" as a factor in determining the payment amount. That obviously goes beyond "basic needs".
1. I didn't say "limited" to basic needs or my example of unemployment benefits would be a complete contradiction. You can't live off the unemployment benefits. The concept in which you fail to grasp is that the government's role is to ensure that the most basic needs are met. The states are authorized to add more to the law, not take away. It's not illegal to prevent your children from having videogames, televisions, cars, cellphones or anything else that would make childhood enjoyable, but it is against the law to prevent your children from having an education, food, water and shelter. So obviously the laws support "basic needs". If it isn't against the law to not provide or even
remove the former things from a child during a marriage, then why is it law to mandate keeping them after a divorce? You are only proving my point that it clearly goes beyond "basic needs" when current laws only mandate basic needs.
2. My overall complaint is that you can't accurately determine the standard of living of the child purely based off the income of the parents without making assumptions. Just because I make 200k a year, doesn't mean I have private tutors and horse riding lessons for my child. I may spend roughly the same amount of money on my child as my neighbor who only makes 120k a year, so why should I pay significantly more? We may live in the same valued house, drive the same type of car, etc.
If the standard of life of the child is $300 a month, then why am I obligated to pay more?
Jophiel wrote:
None. But then child support is paid the the guardian parent anyway and not the child. So the real question would be what damage has my ex-wife incurred. And in this case it would be none because neither of us has any legal responsibility towards you therefore neither of us can be damaged in that respect.
Whether or not if the damages are paid to the guardian is irrelevant because the "damages" only exist because of the child. Under your logic, damages would still occur and you would owe your wife additional money because I was there. However, you are correct in contradicting your previously flawed logic and saying that you wouldn't owe anything because you don't have any LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY towards me. If this were a simple "damage" case, it wouldn't matter if you had legal responsibility over me. The legal responsibility is a huge factor in this because the point of child support is actually supporting the child. You have a legal responsibility to support the child and you leaving with no support would be damaging to the spouse and the child. It's really not that hard to grasp.