Court Denies Liability of Parents in Teen Sex

Parents are not responsible for civil damages when their children agree to have sex, a state appeal court in San Diego has ruled.

Rejecting civil liability for the parents of a teen-age boy who impregnated his girlfriend, the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled recently that consensual intercourse between the boy and the girl--who was 16 when she gave birth--was not “willful misconduct” that could lead to damages.

The case marked the first California ruling on the civil duty of parents for what could have led to criminal prosecution of the boy on statutory rape charges. There was not, however, a “hint of prosecution” because the teens had a “dating relationship” that later led to marriage and were having sex voluntarily, the court said in a March 22 opinion.

Noting that times and values had changed, a three-judge panel of the court ruled unanimously that it was “not inclined to dwell on outdated legal fictions concerning the ability of underage females to consent to sex.”

The court also declined to equate willing intercourse with acts of “juvenile delinquency, vandalism and malicious mischief,” for which parents can be held liable under state law. There is a distinction, the panel said, between someone hurt through no fault of their own and an injured person who voluntarily takes part in an offense that later generates a complaint.

Mark R. Moore, the La Mesa attorney for the young mother, Cynthia Matthews, now 21, said Tuesday he is urging her to appeal the case to the California Supreme Court. It’s still uncertain whether an appeal will be pursued, he said.

“I believe each family should share at least equally in a situation like this,” Moore said. “I think each set of parents needs to bear responsibility when there is an expense relating to a child.”

But Robert F. Wesley, the San Diego lawyer for the father, Rodney Evans, now a 22-year-old mechanic, said the court was right not to substitute civil liability for a potential criminal charge.

“Both these kids were equally culpable,” Wesley said. “To try to hang (liability) on a criminal statute was equally offensive.”

Matthews and Evans began dating in 1985, according to the 4th District court. Later, they married but now are separated, Wesley said. Neither they nor the two sets of parents could be reached Tuesday for comment.

On March, 22, 1986, Matthews, then 16, gave birth to a boy, Terrell E. Matthews. The father was Evans, the court said.

Because of complications, Terrell had to remain in the hospital after Cynthia was discharged. Family insurance did not cover the baby’s hospital bill once Cynthia was discharged, and her mother and stepfather, Carolyn and Jeffrey Barone, incurred a $10,000 medical bill.

On June 1, 1987, Cynthia, through her mother and stepfather, sued Rodney, through his mother and stepfather, Joanne and Lee Cohen, seeking repayment for the $10,000 hospital bill.

(Child support has not been an issue in the case, Wesley said. The suit was filed after the couple married and they now are separated, not divorced, he said.)

The claim was based on the novel theory that the state law requiring parents to pick up the tab for vandalism and other “willful misconduct,” acts that cause damage to other people’s property, covered costs arising from sexual intercourse.

On Aug. 19, 1988, San Diego Superior Court Judge Thomas Ashworth III ruled against Cynthia, rejecting the novel claim, at least regarding the $10,000 hospital bill.

The 4th District court affirmed Ashworth’s ruling. The state law on “willful misconduct” was designed to make the parents of unruly teens pay for property damage only, Judge William L. Todd Jr. said, citing the original 1955 law.

The law, as amended in 1983, expanded restitution possibilities by doubling parents’ civil liability for crimes committed by minors. The link between that law and the case is that Evans could technically have been prosecuted for statutory rape, defined as unlawful sexual intercourse with an unmarried female under age 18.

But, Todd said, that was “too simplistic.”

Cynthia Matthews became pregnant and incurred hospital costs, not because she and Rodney Evans had sex, which would be the focus in a rape case, but because she became pregnant from the sex, Todd said.

And, critically, she consented to the sex with him, he said. Although the consent of someone under 18 is no defense in a criminal case such as statutory rape, the civil courts allow minors to consent at ages as young as 14 to an abortion or obtaining birth control, he said.

An abiding legal maxim, Todd said, is that, “He who consents to an act is not wronged by it.” Since Cynthia Matthews consented to sex, her parents had no claim for damages, he said.

Todd also took the opportunity to justify his ruling through a footnote of social comment.

He said, “The fact of the matter is that, in the latter part of the 20th Century, a substantial percentage of minors of both sexes are engaging in sexual activity. Pregnancies among unwed teen-age girls are a major contemporary problem and phenomenon.

“To cling to vestiges of a bygone era is to ignore the contemporary realities of nature,” he said.

Judges Howard B. Wiener and Don R. Work concurred in Todd’s opinion.