Foley, J.
Brooke Wells (“Daughter”) challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the trial court’s finding that she repudiated her father, Joseph Todd Wells (“Father”), and therefore Father was relieved of his obligation to pay for her to attend college. Concluding that the trial court did not clearly err in finding that Daughter repudiated Father, we affirm the trial court.
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Although not raised by the parties, the dissent would hold that the doctrine of repudiation is not available to Father because Father’s obligation to contribute to Daughter’s educational expenses was included in a marital settlement agreement. Critically, however, a parent’s obligation to contribute to the educational expenses of a child is not found at common law but, instead, arises solely from our dissolution of marriage statutes. See I.C. § 31-16-6-2. And, similar to a child support order, an educational support order is subject to modification. See generally Svenstrup v. Svenstrup, 981 N.E.2d 138, 145 (Ind. Ct. App. 2012) (“Generally, provisions for the payment of educational expenses are . . . modifiable because educational expenses are in the nature of child support.”); see also Panfil v. Fell, 19 N.E.3d 772, 778 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014) (involving circumstances where “the dissolution decree incorporated an agreement of the parties” requiring one parent to pay “one-third of [the child’s] expenses for . . . college education,” and the trial court “later modified its order to condition [the] support obligation” on, among other things, the maintenance of a certain GPA), trans. denied. We find no proper basis to limit the doctrine of repudiation to instances where the provision of educational expenses was a contested matter—particularly in this instance, where more than ten years have passed since the original agreed entry. [Footnote omitted.] We therefore proceed to address Daughter’s challenges to the trial court’s findings and judgment.
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Affirmed. Pyle, J., concurs.
Tavitas, J., dissents with opinion
Tavitas, Judge, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision to affirm the trial court’s determination that Father is not required to pay for Daughter’s college expenses because she repudiated her relationship with Father. First, the repudiation doctrine should not even apply to Father because he agreed to pay for all of Daughter’s college expenses in the settlement agreement between Father and Mother during the dissolution of their marriage. And, even if the repudiation doctrine could apply in such situations, the evidence does not support the trial court’s determination that Daughter completely repudiated her relationship with Father.
I. Repudiation Should Not Apply to Settlement Agreements
When Father and Mother divorced, they entered into a settlement agreement. In this agreement, Father agreed to pay for 100 percent of Daughter’s college expenses. Because Father agreed to pay for Daughter’s college expenses, I am not convinced that the doctrine of repudiation should even apply.
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Given these facts, a parent should not be able to escape their freely-bargained-for obligation to contribute to their child’s college expenses. McKay and its progeny only stand for the proposition that, when one parent seeks a court order requiring the other parent to contribute toward their child’s college expenses, the latter cannot be required to do so when the child has completely refused to have a relationship with that parent. This is simply not the case here.
Here, Father agreed to pay 100 percent of Daughter’s college expenses as part of the settlement agreement. Clearly, Mother and Father negotiated this financial obligation as part of the overall financial settlement. This term of the settlement agreement is not conditioned on Father’s desire or ability to pay. Father agreed to assume all responsibility. Father should be held to his end of the bargain. See Himes, 57 N.E.3d at 829 n.1.
Furthermore, I am concerned about the potential for damage to parent-child relationships if we allow a parent to cause the very conflict that results in the alleged “repudiation” by exploiting child’s desire to go to college knowing her parents had agreed to this at the time of their divorce. Children are greatly affected by divorce, and to allow a parent to “repudiate” an agreed-upon term of their settlement agreement that was negotiated for a child gives the parent the ability to renege on their obligations. Here, the source of the conflict between Father and Daughter is Father’s refusal to pay for Daughter’s college expenses, despite his agreement to do so. By permitting Daughter’s understandable frustration at this refusal to form the basis of a “repudiation” finding allows Father to benefit from his obstinance.