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.