A 50-year-old Changhua man has failed to fulfill his duties as a father for a long time. The court ruled that his son is exempt from the obligation to support him.

Schematic diagram. (Photo by reporter Chen Guanbei)

A 50-year-old man from Changhua has been taking drugs, stealing, and snatching motorcycles for many years. Even though he has a family and children, he still commits crimes after being released from prison. He has spent almost half of his life in an iron prison and has never fulfilled his father's duties for a day. Until last year, the man was paralyzed due to a car accident and unable to take care of himself. He was placed in a nursing home. He actually asked his son to pay for support and medical expenses. After he was refused, the two parties went to court. The judge held that the man had failed to fulfill his support obligations for a long time, which was unfair to the son who had never received his father's love, and ruled that the son should be exempted from his support obligations to his father.

The verdict pointed out that the man got married in 2004, but continued to be in and out of jail frequently due to drug abuse and multiple criminal cases after the marriage. From 2006 to 2024, he was imprisoned or rehabilitated many times for violating drug harm prevention regulations, theft, and obstructing freedom. Among them, he served consecutive sentences for more than 9 years from 2012 to 2021. He was imprisoned again in 2022 and was not released from prison until 2024. During the golden period of a child's growth, the father's role is almost completely blank, and the son even has "no impression" of his father.

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In 2025, the man was seriously injured in a car accident and collapsed and became incapacitated, and was placed in a nursing home. Since he had no property or income in his name, the Social Affairs Department of Changhua County Government notified his adult son to bear the cost of placement and care. Only then did the son learn about his biological father's current situation. The son believed that his father had never fulfilled his duties as a father and that they had no emotional basis for each other. It was unfair for him to bear the responsibility for support now, so he petitioned the court to be exempted from the obligation to support.

During the hearing at the Changhua District Court, the son’s mother testified in court that the man went to prison not long after she was pregnant. After the child was born, due to financial difficulties, she sent her son to China to be taken care of by his grandmother. During this period, the man was briefly released from prison, but immediately went to jail for drug abuse. Eventually, the two divorced in 2010. She complained bitterly that from birth to adulthood, the man never paid a dime in support to her son. The father and son only met a few times before the divorce, and she raised her son alone.

The Changhua District Court reviewed records and confirmed that the man had been in prison for more than 10 years without providing living expenses or accompanying care. The judge considered that although the man had no property or annuity income and indeed had support needs, according to Article 1118-1 of the Civil Code, the support obligation had been changed from "absolute obligation" to "relative obligation." The father has failed to fulfill his support responsibilities for a long time without justifiable reasons and the circumstances are serious. It would be difficult and extremely unfair to force the son who has not been loved by his father to bear the support obligations. Therefore, the ruling allows the son to be exempted from the support obligations. The whole case can still be contested.

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