Should children be forced to subsidize care for parents who abused them? A couple of adults in New Jersey have been ensnared by a law which requires them to do just that, and the media spotlight on their case will likely result in a much needed change in the law.
Passed in 1918, the state law requires relatives to pay for any hospitalization that is the result of a court order. As a result New Jersey plans to ask Michael and Chrissy McMickle to pay for the state-ordered hospitalization of their father, Nelden McMickle, who went to jail for sexually abusing them.
Under a 1993 New Jersey law, the state can commit some sexual offenders to a mental facility after their prison term is completed rather than simply release the offender back into the community, if the offender is deemed a threat to the community (such laws, by the way, should be unconstitutional, but have, unfortunately, been upheld by courts).
After Nelden McMickle finished his prison sentence, the state deemed him a threat to the community and committed him to a state hospital — and began sending Michael McMickle a letter asking him to pay part of the annual $90,000 bill for his father’s hospitalization. If Michael refuses to pay, the state could pursue him in court to force payment. Barring a change in the law, Chrissy McMickle, now 18, will not receive such letters until she has finished college, if she pursues post-secondary education.
The McMickle case will probably spur a change in the law. Michael McMickle has already hired a lawyer to challenge the law and says he won’t pay a single dime to support the father who regularly subjected him to physical and sexual abuse. Meanwhile as Chrissy McMickle sums the whole case up, “I didn’t think I would have to go through this again. It’s like being victimized again.”
Source:
Law could force siblings to pay for abusive father’s treatment. Amy Westfeldt, Associated Press, March 26, 2001.
The Should Abuse Victims Have to Pay for their Abuser’s Care? by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
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