Hastings v. Hastings
Third District Court of Appeal of Florida
841 So.2d 484 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2003)
Jean and Lawrence Hastings (defendant/plaintiff) divorced in 1953, and their child was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome at age eight. Lawrence's support obligation under the divorce decree ended when the child turned twenty-one, and Jean alone supported the now fifty-year-old child from then on. Lawrence sought a declaratory ruling that he had no continuing support obligation; Jean and the child counterclaimed, invoking a Florida statutory savings clause preserving any common-law right to support for a disabled adult child whose incapacity began as a minor. The trial court granted Lawrence summary judgment.
Whether a mentally or physically disabled adult child, whose disability manifested while a minor, has a common-law right to support from both parents throughout the parents' lives.