The ruling in case number 26A-DC-01758 (Jonathan M. An Indiana mother who has had no contact with her teenage son for four years does not have to pay for his university education, an appeals court has ruled. The Court of Appeals of Indiana upheld a lower court decision that found the son had rejected his relationship with his mother. Under state law, this gave her a complete legal defence against being forced to pay for his education after high school. Pratt v. Jamie L. Pratt) ends the father’s legal attempt to make his former wife contribute to their son’s higher education costs.
When the son turned 18 in January 2025, Mr Pratt asked the court to order Mrs Pratt to help pay for their son’s education after high school as he prepared to graduate. During a hearing in July 2025 before Special Judge Douglas A. Both Mrs Pratt and her son agreed that they had not spoken to or seen each other since 2021. Photographs of text messages submitted as evidence showed that Mrs Pratt had sent around 25 messages to her son between 2021 and 2025. In May 2026, the Howard Circuit Court issued its decision. Code § 31-16-6-2), parents are not automatically required to pay for their children’s education after high school. The appeals court also addressed behaviour that begins before a child turns 18. The judges noted that although repudiation mainly concerns an adult child’s behaviour after turning 18, courts can consider actions that started during the teenage years if the behaviour continues without change into adulthood.
Because her son had rejected his relationship with her, it ruled that Mrs Pratt did not have to pay for college.
“By college age, children of divorced parents must be expected to begin to come to terms with the reality of their family’s situation,” Judge Scheele noted, quoting an earlier appeals court decision, McKay v. Tate, the court heard different accounts of why the mother and son had stopped communicating. The son testified that his mother had not contacted him during those four years. However, Mrs Pratt presented electronic evidence showing that she had tried to reach him. One of those messages was sent directly to him on his 18th birthday. Her son did not reply to any of the messages. Mr Pratt appealed, arguing that the lower court had wrongly considered his son’s failure to respond while he was still a minor living under his father’s care and influence. Writing for the unanimous appeals panel, Judge Scheele rejected the father’s argument and upheld the lower court’s decision. Judges Brown and Kenworthy agreed with the ruling. Under Indiana law (Ind. State courts can order parents to provide financial support for further education, but a child’s rejection of a relationship with a parent can serve as a complete legal defence against such an order. Ellis and Messner v. Messner. These cases define repudiation as a child’s complete refusal to take part in a relationship with a parent. McKay. “Whatever their biases and resentments, while one can understand how they got that way, when they become adults it is no longer appropriate to allow them to stay that way without consequence. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.
In the opinion, Judge Scheele referred to earlier court decisions, Lovold v.