Kiely v. Kiely Appellate Docket No. A-0738-12T4, 2013 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 2784 (App. Div. Nov. 19, 2013)

Nov 19, 2013

OUTCOME: I successfully appealed the trial Court's decision resulting in our client's child support obligation being terminated (overturning the trial court's decision not to emancipate the parties' daughter).

I represented a Father and appealed the trial court's decision finding his daughter "unemancipated". I argued, among other things, that the Judge erred in not finding the daughter emancipated based on ... her failure to be enrolled as a full-time student and inconsistent attendance/unsatisfactory progress when she did attend. I also made arguments regarding the correct legal standards to use in analyzing whether the daughter should be emancipated. The Appellate Division agreed and found that, completing some evening classes during one single semester in three years and an expressed "intent" to continue to register for classes and improve performance was not sufficient. Our client (and many other parents in similar circumstances), who had dutifully been paying child support for over a decade will no longer be obligated to pay absent a sufficient showing of proof