In re Breault

Summary

The New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed an order requiring a parent to continue paying child support while the parties’ daughter attended college. The court held that New Hampshire statutes permit a trial court, in an original or modified support order, to require continued child support beyond high school when equitable under the circumstances.

Holdings

1. RSA 458:35-c permits a trial court to specify that child support will continue beyond the statutory termination events; therefore, the statute did not require support to terminate upon the daughter's high-school graduation.
2. A trial court has discretion, in both original and modified support orders, to require the noncustodial parent to continue paying child support while the child attends college when continued support is equitable under the circumstances.
3. The trial court had discretion to modify the support order because the daughter's qualifications and desires for post-secondary education were not apparent or reasonably foreseeable when the parties negotiated their 1993 agreement.
4. The trial court sustainably denied the motion for reconsideration in part because its initial ruling did not contain the legal errors asserted by the petitioner.

Questions Presented

1. Whether RSA 458:35-c required child support to terminate when the parties' daughter graduated from high school.
2. Whether a trial court may order, in an original or modified support order, continued child support while an adult child attends college.
3. Whether the daughter's anticipated college attendance was insufficiently foreseeable to constitute grounds for modifying the parties' prior support agreement.
4. Whether the trial court unsustainably exercised its discretion by partially denying the petitioner's motion for reconsideration.

Disposition

affirmed