NM court allows child support to emancipated minor

KRQE - Teenagers younger than 18 who are living on their own can be entitled to receive child support from a parent even after they are legally freed them from their parents' control, New Mexico's highest court ruled Monday. The decision gives minors who are abandoned by a parent the ability to collect financial support, according to a lawyer for 21-year-old Jhette Diamond, who left her home in northern New Mexico at the age of 13 because of her mother's abusive boyfriend. The high court's ruling upheld a district judge's decision to grant Diamond $15,278 in child support from her mother — covering from 2005 when she was still a minor to May 2009 when she graduated from high school in Espanola and turned 18, legally becoming an adult. Diamond went to court in 2007, at the age of 16, to be declared legally emancipated from her mother. That allowed her, as a teenager, to independently make decisions that otherwise would have required parental consent, such as applying for a driver's permit, enrolling in school and obtaining medical coverage. After separating from her mother, Diamond lived with neighbors and their families, continued to attend school and worked in a restaurant to pay her expenses. Read More News New Mexico

NM court allows child support to emancipated minor