As noted in a previous article, the Family Expense Statute (RCW 26.16.205)
has been applied in Washington to hold stepparents equally responsible for the
support of stepchildren. Recently, the state supreme court soundly rejected
that practice.
On February 26, 1998, the Washington State Supreme Court held that a
stepparent’s obligation to support his stepchildren ended when they left his
home. In Harmon v. DSHS, 951 P. 2d, 770 (Wash. 1998), the high court reversed
the lower court’s decision to require Mr. Harmon to continue to pay child
support for his two step-daughters even though the girls had moved back in
with their natural father. In expressly disapproving of this requirement, the
state supreme court noted:
[t]he child support schedule and standards set forth in RCW 26.19 govern all
child support determinations in this state. RCW 26.16.205, the family expense
statute, may not be used as a separate child support statute to hold
noncustodial stepparents equally responsible, with the parents, for the
support of stepchildren.
In maintaining its position of looking to the stepparent for child support,
the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) had argued that: 1). RCW
26.16.205 created a child support obligation on the part of a stepparent that
arose when the child began living in the stepparent’s home; 2). this
obligation is equal to that of the child’s natural parents; and 3). said
obligation does not end until a court order is entered.
The court disagreed, by finding that the family expense statute is not a child
support statute. Instead, the court noted it is a statute that makes both
parties to a marriage equally responsible for the necessary expenses of a
family. The court explicitly determined that a family "includes stepchildren
who are part of the family unit, who reside in the family home, or who are in
the residential care of one of the adults in this family unit. It does not
include children who are in the primary residential care of the other parent."
As a result, the state supreme court held that Mr. Harmon was not liable for
the support of his step-daughters after the lower court had ordered placement
of the children to be changed to their father.