Understanding Indiana’s Laws on Filial Responsibility

What Exactly are Laws Regarding Filial Responsibility?

Filial responsibility laws are laws that impose a legal obligation on an adult child for the support and care of their indigent parent(s). Originally, these laws were designed so that needy older individuals would not have to rely on the state for financial support or government assistance.
However, in more recent years, these laws have been used by states to collect from children in order to cover the costs of their parents’ care in nursing facilities . It is important to note the distinction between adult child and parent. An adult child may have very young kids of their own, and are hardly in a position to financially support their parent.
Over half of the states – 29 in all – have some form of filial support, though not all are actively enforced. Indiana is one of the few states that have the ability to garnish wages for any non-payment.

The Current State of Filial Laws in the State of Indiana

The concept of filial responsibility doesn’t currently have any legal ramifications in Indiana. State law doesn’t require children to support parents as a result of Indiana’s failure to pass any specific filial support laws. However, this doesn’t mean that Indiana won’t have filial laws in some form in the future—there have been recent attempts by representatives to pass such laws, although these efforts have proved to be unsuccessful.
Indiana’s legislature reviewed a proposal to require adult children to be liable for health care costs for their parents that received long-term care. This proposal was also designed to enforce personal liens on children that didn’t contribute to their parents’ care. However, the proposal was voted down in the state legislature.
About 28 states have filial support laws that are enforceable through the courts. These laws allow health care providers and nursing homes to go after children if parents can’t pay for long-term care. However, Indiana is one of the states that doesn’t have any laws of this type. Indiana’s position puts more of an emphasis on the interpretation of emergency financial needs in court to enforce a 1984 statute that states that an adult child has a duty to support his or her parents who can’t provide for their own needs.
If you’re familiar with litigation in a surrounding area of Indiana, you may have heard that states like Kentucky have long imposed duties on children to support their parents. Kentucky’s fee-for-service Medicaid program provides some funds to support parents. These funds are then sought after by a parent’s care home if the individual has waiting lists for placement.

How This Affects Families Within The State

It is important to understand the potential implications of filial responsibility laws for families in Indiana. In Indiana, adult children may be responsible for their parents’ long-term care expenses if the parents require Medicaid assistance to cover the costs and cannot afford these expenses themselves.
As an example, consider a situation where your parents are both 82 years old and have been married for 55 years. Your father was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and is in the early stages of memory loss. With the progression of Alzheimer’s, your father could become helpless as the disease advances. Your 80-year old mother, who suffers from arthritis and walks with a cane, has informed you that she can no longer care for your father, whom she has been taking care of the last seven years. Your father requires consistent decluttering around the house for him to feel comfortable.
Consider this scenario. Three months after leaving their residence, your father is admitted to an assisted living facility. Neither of your parents have any sort of retirement plan, investments, or savings and they have little financial resources available to defray the burden of paying for care. Your father’s monthly expenses for independent living are $2,500.
The cost of an assisted living facility in Indiana ranges between $3,150 and $4,800 per month. In our hypothetical example, the monthly expense of a facility is $3,700, which would leave your mother’s income of $1,850 per month as the only available source of income to pay for your father’s care. As the expenses paid by your father continue to mount to the amount of $3,700 per month, this would leave your mother with a negative cash flow of $1,850 per month, resulting in a significant decrease in your mother’s assets.
If your father or mother were to apply for Medicaid benefits in Indiana to pay for the cost of care in an assisted living facility, after a review of one’s income and assets, he or she would be deemed financially ineligible for coverage within the first year of receiving assistance. As a result, the only alternative available might be to look to the parent’s child(ren) for repayment of the costs of the care. In the scenario above, your father’s assets would be spent within a year.
It is important for people to understand the potential implications of filial responsibility laws in Indiana before a family member who needs care.

Legal History and Case Studies

Historically, filial responsibility laws outside of Indiana have had a mixed influence on how courts have applied these laws. For example, in 2011, the Supreme Court of Appeal of Delaware rejected a claim for reimbursement based on filial responsibility statutes, holding that Wake County, North Carolina was not entitled to reimbursement under North Carolina’s filial responsibility statute, which is limited to adult children of a mentally incompetent parent who "seriously and immediately needs care and attention" and then only for the "reasonable value of support and care rendered."
A recent case from Pennsylvania rejected a similar claim , but also distinguished it from the case of In re Laura Nizinski, a Pennsylvania decision from 1988 which held that the plaintiff/facility was a "third-party creditor" to whom the law applied, and requiring the daughter to reimburse the facility for the cost of her mother’s fees.
Outside of North Carolina and Pennsylvania, courts have generally held that the right to seek reimbursement based on filial responsibility is only available to a person who is legally responsible for a parent, not to other persons or facilities, even when the plaintiff may have assisted in the care of the disabled parent.

Alternate Legal Options to Filial Responsibility

Indiana has a variety of government programs and nonprofit services that aim to ameliorate the burden on children to provide support if their parents require it. However, these programs are not available to everyone. Generally, individuals who are covered include those who are at least 60 years old, can provide verification of their relationship to their parent, have financial documents available, and can testify about the care provided to the parent.
For those who do not meet the requirements for government assistance programs, elder nonprofits also aim to reduce the burden on children. For example, the Indiana Division of Aging hosts a list of elder nonprofits on its website. Some elder nonprofits even provide governmental financial assistance and nonprofit support programs in one place.
However, it is important to remember that just because government agencies or elder nonprofits provide assistance that relieves a child’s filial responsibilities, that does not mean that such support is available in every case. If you are seeking relief from one of these laws, you should consult with an Indianapolis adult guardianship attorney.

Ethical Implications and The Public Response

Disagreements surrounding filial responsibility laws in Indiana have been seen from both political sides across the country. Arguments for filial responsibility laws cite that individuals have a moral and familial obligation to care for their parents, essentially providing an option to file suit against a non-compliant child. Others believe that these laws should not exist at all, regardless of whether or not they are legal. However, given increasing life spans, longevity of medical care, and increasing gerotechnology in daily life, public opinion on the subject remains conflicted.
Those who argue in favor of filial responsibility laws do so from a cultural perspective. Elder law attorney William M. Geary argues, "[a]s people live longer and have fewer children, our culture has lacked a mechanism to provide for their care. …to make up the shortfall, states have implemented ‘filial laws’—laws that mount a financial assault on the elderly’s children." This argument is based largely on a familial obligation on the part of offspring to accept the responsibility of parents , particularly those who cannot pay for long-term care.
In opposition, many believe that the law itself is unethical and is not operationally feasible. In a 2012 Houston Chronicle opinion piece, columnist and author Tracy McCormick writes "[i]nstead of aiding people who are expected to be paid a living wage for caregiving, the law invites financial ruin. …the law ignores families who are already overwhelmed. You don’t need a full-time job to be too busy to care for your parents."
Those in objection to these laws apply a moral perspective as well, stating that the law is unethical. Public opinion is swayed against filial responsibility laws in general. Senior citizens may view the law as a punishment for aging. The general public may see the law as allowing for exploitation by financially secure relatives of the wealthy and thereby a misuse of the law to ingratiate themselves with their aging relatives.