Grounds for emancipation

[southernfury01]

I have a few questions, but here is some background.

I have a 20yr stepdaughter, she (barely)graduated highschool in june  2005.
she didn't signup for any collages untill Dec 22, 2005 (the day before we went to court to emancipate her).

Judge allowed her to continue recieving support bacause "she was living full time with her mother".

Also allowed a Educational support order, but she would have to pay $2000 a year herself and attend full time which is 12 credit hrs a semester.

Her tuition is $1400 a year.

Since then, Her first semester she only received  a total of 3 credit hrs  for 1 class and made an "F" in .
Second semester, she had to make up 15 credit hrs and will only receive 5 credit hrs.
She is only attending when she feels like it and the drops classes every few weeks.

She has told all her friends and posted on the web (myspace)(yearbook) and other sites, that she moved out of her mothers home and is now living with roomates.

My questions are:

1. Would her not living at home and failing at school, possibly be enough to emancipate her since she makes $9hr at work?

2. Could we use copies of her conversations on the web as evidence, or would the judge throw it out as heresay?

3. Any Ideas on how to prove shes not living at home? Because she will lie about it to keep support.


Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

[socrateaser]

>My questions are:
>
>1. Would her not living at home and failing at school,
>possibly be enough to emancipate her since she makes $9hr at
>work?

The rules for college differ by jurisdiction, so without researching the law for yours, I can only guess at whether emancipation will get you off the hook for college supoort. Put another way, some states will force college support regardless of whether the child is emancipated, because the two issues have been separated by law.

However, assuming that emancipation is sufficient to terminate support, and the child is living on her own, and working, then that by iteself might be sufficient to emancipate, which would terminate support simultaneously. The counter argument with which you will be faced, is that she is only out of the house temporarily during the school year because it's closer to the school.

The alternate (and the better) theory is to simply prove that the child is not attending school according to the terms of the order, because she's not taking enough units. Many states require that the child maintain a C or better GPA or support is terminated. So, you may be able to avoid the emancipation issue entirely and just prove that the kid isn't complying with the requirements of the court order.

As to which theory is preferred or whether you could argue both, this depends on your state laws and I don't know what they are, so I can't advise. This is definitely worth an hour's worth of a local attorney's time to find out, if your monthly support obligation is greater than the hour's consult fee.

>2. Could we use copies of her conversations on the web as
>evidence, or would the judge throw it out as heresay?

Hard to say. A copy of the website showing that she is effectively advertising her living away from home is hearsay because it's an out of court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted, i.e., that the child is living away from home. However, if you put the child on the witness stand and ask her if she's living away from home and she says no, then you can offer a copy of the document to impeach her testimony, because the document is contradictory to the testimony and is directly on point with the matter at issue.

(Getting bored with the legaleeze, yet??? ;-))

However, in a motion hearing, unlike at a trial, the court has discretion to admit relevant hearsay, if competent, so the court could allow it in (and, probably would if you submitted a copy with your pleading to emancipate.

However, for chat logs or email and the like, it can be sometimes very difficult to prove that the statements were actually made by the declarant. An email has no signature and anyone can send an email from an anonymous address. But, if this is a myspace account and the kid's photos are right there in living color, it's gonna be kind of difficult for the child to say that it's her site but someone else is telling the world that she's living away from home and that it's not true.

So, the short answer is maybe, leaning towords yes.

>3. Any Ideas on how to prove shes not living at home? Because
>she will lie about it to keep support.

If her name's on the lease, then subpoena a copy of the lease agreement from the apartment management. That would be pretty conclusive. Just remember, though, lots of children live away from home during their college school year, so you may be getting ready to prove something which is actually irrelevant to the issue of emancipation and college support.