Child’s Uninsured Medical Expenses were not “Unreimbursed”

The Connecticut Appellate Court concluded that a child’s uninsured medical expenses were not “unreimbursed” for purposes of a child support order where someone other than a parent paid them. In Schull v. Schull, the parties were under court orders to share equally all of their minor children’s unreimbursed medical expenses. Their son had an eye disorder. Plaintiff wanted him to have an experimental surgery that was not covered by her insurance, at a cost of nearly $56,000. Defendant was concerned over the surgery’s experimental nature and cost. Plaintiff said her father would pay for it as a gift to the son.

The son had the surgery when he was 17. Plaintiff’s father paid for it in full. Plaintiff never asked defendant to pay anything.

After the son graduated from high school and turned 18, defendant moved to terminate child support. Plaintiff did not contest termination and did not claim any arrearage.

Nearly a year later, plaintiff filed a motion for contempt, claiming that defendant filed to comply with the court’s orders that he pay 50% of the son’s unreimbursed medical expenses. She claimed that the money from her father was a loan to her, not a gift to the son. The trial court found her testimony “dubious” and noted that plaintiff did not present any evidence of a loan or that she was paying it back. The court gave her two months to submit that evidence. If she met that condition, defendant would be obliged to pay $25 per month towards his putative $28,000 obligation.

I’m going to pause the factual recitation here. Think of it like an aside in a play. At $25 a month, it would take defendant more than 91 years to pay his share. Clearly, the judge was telling plaintiff to let it go. She didn’t.

Instead of submitting the evidence the judge requested, plaintiff filed a motion to reargue, which the court denied. She later filed a motion to open on the basis of fraud. She alleged that defendant had misrepresented his assets in his financial affidavit and could pay more than $25 per month. She still didn’t submit the evidence the court requested. By the time the court considered the motion to open, the evidence deadline had passed.  Instead of denying it outright on that basis, the trial court found no probable cause to believe there was a fraud and denied the motion.

Plaintiff appealed. The Appellate Court affirmed.

Plaintiff’s Main Argument on Appeal

Plaintiff argued that the support orders unconditionally obligated defendant to pay 50% of the son’s unreimbursed medical expenses. Therefore, the trial court improperly conditioned defendant’s payment obligation on proof that plaintiff’s father had loaned plaintiff the money to pay for the surgery and she was paying it back.

Appellate Court Concludes Child’s Uninsured Medical Expenses were not “Unreimbursed”

The Appellate Court noted that the support orders did not define “unreimbursed medical expenses.” But the child support guideline regulations consider unreimbursed medical expenses to be those “not covered by insurance or reimbursed in any other manner” (my emphasis). Since plaintiff failed to prove that she was obliged to repay her father, the surgery expenses were not unreimbursed even though they weren’t reimbursed by insurance. They were reimbursed in another manner — namely by plaintiff’s father’s gift to the son.