In re Interest of C.J.N.-S.

540 S.W.3d 589
CourtTexas Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 23, 2018
DocketNO. 16–0909
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 540 S.W.3d 589 (In re Interest of C.J.N.-S.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Interest of C.J.N.-S., 540 S.W.3d 589 (Tex. 2018).

Opinion

PER CURIAM

This appeal involves a trial court's order directing the father of an adult disabled child to pay child support to the child's mother even though the child did not live with the mother, the mother did not have physical custody of the child, and the mother was not the child's legal guardian. The court of appeals reversed on the basis that the mother did not have standing under the Texas Family Code to seek support. We agree with the trial court that the mother had standing. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals' judgment and remand to that court for it to consider the issues it did not reach.

Karen Narciso and Kenneth Spear were divorced in 1998. One of their children, C.J.N.-S., has continuing medical problems, the cause of which the trial court found existed before she turned eighteen in 2011. After turning eighteen, C.J.N.-S. began living apart from her parents. She was diagnosed with gastroparesis in May 2013. Narciso describes the disease as a disorder that interrupts the movement of food through the stomach and causes severe nausea, vomiting, and abdominal cramping. C.J.N.-S. takes medication and uses a feeding tube to control her symptoms. She continues living apart from her parents but has been unable to maintain employment. Narciso pays living and medical expenses for C.J.N.-S. and visits her regularly to help with household chores.

Narciso sought child support from Spear pursuant to Family Code section 154.302. That section provides that a parent may be ordered to pay support for an adult child if the child requires substantial care and personal supervision because of a mental or physical disability existing on or before the child's eighteenth birthday. TEX. FAM. CODE § 154.302. The Family Code specifies who has standing to bring suit seeking such an order:

Standing to Sue

(a) A suit provided by this subchapter may be filed only by:
(1) a parent of the child or another person having physical custody or guardianship of the child under a court order; or
(2) the child if the child:
(A) is 18 years of age or older;
(B) does not have a mental disability ; and
(C) is determined by the court to be capable of managing the child's financial affairs.

Id. § 154.303(a).

Spear responded to Narciso's suit, in part, by arguing that Narciso lacked standing because she did not have either physical custody of C.J.N.-S. or guardianship of her pursuant to a court order. The trial court interpreted the statute as not requiring Narciso to have either. The court concluded that both Narciso and Spear, as parents, had the duty to support C.J.N.-S. and found that it was in C.J.N.-S.'s best interest that they do so. The court ordered Spear to pay monthly support for C.J.N.-S. to Narciso in the amounts of $250 as *591medical support and $722.85 as child support.

Spear appealed, challenging (1) the trial court's interpretation of section 154.303(a)(1) and (2) the sufficiency of the evidence to support the trial court's findings that (a) C.J.N.-S. requires support due to mental or physical disability caused by a condition that existed before her eighteenth birthday and (b) the amount of support awarded. The court of appeals reversed. It concluded that section 154.303(a)(1) did not give Narciso standing; thus, the trial court lacked jurisdiction over her suit. 501 S.W.3d 646, 651 (Tex. App.-Corpus Christi 2016). Because the jurisdictional issue was dispositive, the court did not reach Spear's remaining issues. Id.

We review questions of statutory interpretation de novo. Sommers for Ala. & Dunlavy, Ltd. v. Sandcastle Homes, Inc. , 521 S.W.3d 749, 754 (Tex. 2017). When interpreting statutes, courts presume the Legislature's intent is reflected in the words of the statute and give those words their fair meaning. See id. Courts are to analyze statutes "as a cohesive, contextual whole, accepting that lawmaker-authors chose their words carefully, both in what they included and in what they excluded." Id. Further, courts presume the Legislature intended for all the words in a statute to have meaning and for none of them to be useless. Spradlin v. Jim Walter Homes, Inc. , 34 S.W.3d 578, 580 (Tex. 2000).

Narciso's position is that the Legislature intended the phrase "a parent of the child" to be separate from the phrase "another person having physical custody or guardianship of the child under a court order." Under that reading, a parent would have standing to bring suit regardless of whether the parent has physical custody or court-ordered guardianship, while persons other than parents would have standing only if they have physical custody of the child or are court-ordered guardians. She asserts that a plain reading of the statute indicates the "or" following "the parent of a child" in section 154.303(a)(1) is to be read in the disjunctive and manifests the Legislature's intent to provide standing to persons other than parents, rather than an intent to impose on parents the additional standing prerequisites of physical custody or guardianship by a court order. She posits that the Legislature intended neither to place additional burdens and expense upon parents of adult disabled children nor to deprive disabled individuals of independence by requiring them to remain in the custody of their parents. Further, she notes that the trial court's continuing jurisdiction over the parties and discretion to reevaluate and redirect support payments is sufficient to guard against abuse or misuse of support payments by the parent receiving them.

Spear's position is that the Legislature intended the entire phrase "a parent of the child or another person" to be modified by the phrase "having physical custody or guardianship of the child under a court order." Under that reading, parents and nonparents alike would have standing to bring suit only if they have either physical custody of, or a court order granting them guardianship of, the child.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
540 S.W.3d 589, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-interest-of-cjn-s-tex-2018.