Using Child Support Trusts to Prepare Both Father and Child for Life After Professional Sports
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Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law Volume 2 Issue 1 Winter 2000 Article 8 2000 Planning for the Future: Using Child Support Trusts to Prepare Both Father and Child for Life After Professional Sports Thomas C. Quinlen Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/jetlaw Part of the Estates and Trusts Commons, Family Law Commons, and the Sexuality and the Law Commons Recommended Citation Thomas C. Quinlen, Planning for the Future: Using Child Support Trusts to Prepare Both Father and Child for Life After Professional Sports, 2 Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law 108 (2020) Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/jetlaw/vol2/iss1/8 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law by an authorized editor of Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Iports Using Child S 0 Support Trusts to Prepare Both Father and Child for Life After • ....+.. -,i Professional Sports By Thomas C. Quinlen bt ]Future A woman slept with a National Basketball Association superstar who insisted on wearing a condom. The woman then took the used con- dom and put it in her refrigerator, hoping to artificially inseminate her- self later, unbeknownst to the player. Her goal was to bear this man's child, knowing that if she won a paternity suit, it would mean a huge child sup- port award for her and her child.1 This was the rumor that circulated among NBA players during the 1997-98 season, and whether apoc- ryphal or not, it represents the worst fears of professional athletes. 2 They fear that women are preying on them, hoping to also act as a reserve account for the father once the child seduce them, get pregnant by them, and sue them for or children are no longer dependants. hundreds of thousands of dollars in child support. U7te Sco kgh) Despite their self-perception as victims, athletes often are not sympathetic characters either: many are over- paid, immature, and egotistical. Many athletes are not The issue of professional athletes siring children out of exactly slamming the door when these women come call- wedlock was first thrust into the national conscience in 4 ing. The sexual exploits of Magic Johnson, Shawn Kemp, an article in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED in May 1998. The SI and Wilt Chamberlain are known all over the world. piece was followed by several newspaper articles in vari- Even ignoring the current epidemics of AIDS and other ous cities around the country, but like most hot news top- on to sexually transmitted diseases, these excesses are not ics, it was quickly forgotten as the nation moved without consequences, as these celebrities father and more pressing issues. This Note aims to revisit this issue abandon a string of children. with an eye towards practical and legal resolution of this Unfortunately, in this battle between promiscuous pervasive problem, suggesting ways that lawyers and parents, it is the children who are most harmed. Rather agents can establish child support trusts to represent than being providers of stable, loving relationships, these their clients' interests and provide the best result for any parents, who were either greedy or foolish or both, are children involved. is a not prepared to take on the responsibility of raising a First, this Note will discuss generally why a trust child. Thus, the next stop after the delivery room is the good solution to the problems of "deadbeat dads," short courthouse, where one parent tries to pass off a share of careers, and long-term childrearing costs. Then, it will the expense of raising the child to the non-custodial par- examine the laws of four particularly relevant states looking ent. In the case of athletes in the four professional regarding child support and the use of trusts, leagues, the courts can help ensure that the child at least specifically at successful implementations of trusts and gets financial support from the millionaire father. But as at the potential pitfalls that practitioners can avoid. The all child support regimes allow for changes in circum- Note will then move on to describe the structure of the stances, the courts cannot guarantee the financial wel- optimal fund for this situation and how to choose a fare of the child if the father experiences a dramatic trustee. And finally, it will discuss the considerable tax decrease in income at the end of his playing days. 3 While implications of creating such a trust and how to defuse this might be the proper result under the applicable child potential tax problems. support statutes, a straightforward application of the While the principles contained in this Note apply to professional ath- laws would seem to leave the child without the financial any situation, the problem involving support beyond the term of the father's athletic career. letes is gender specific. First, this problem has not sur- In order to avoid this riches-to-rags story, courts, faced yet in women's professional sports. Second, biology attorneys, and agents must engage in financial planning dictates that men can produce many more children much preg- for the best interests of the child before the opportunity more quickly than women - a woman can only get to provide for the future is lost. Although parents will nant once at a time, no matter how many men she sleeps occasionally have the foresight to engage in this type of with, while a man can father as many children as there planning, the large initial support payments are often too are women to sleep with him. tempting and end up being squandered. Thus, courts are in the best position to secure these children's future M/akigthe Symes financial situations by designing trusts to hold funds for future educational expenses and supplementing support The concern of this Note is athletes and babies, specif- payments once the father's income is reduced. Such ically, professional athletes with out-of-wedlock babies. same trusts would release funds only to educational institu- Children of divorced parents do not present the tions and to the parent or child as the trustee determines problems for courts in setting support amounts, because is necessary for the child's health, maintenance, and wel- divorce's natural antecedent is marriage, and marriage fare. This provision will preserve funds for the child's provides background the courts can examine the marital benefit well after the father's playing days are over, and home and see how the mother and children lived. One- night stands and short-term lovers, however, do not Hollywood. 8 Furthermore, retired musicians and actors impart the same sense of stability and continuity. In usually can expect royalty payments over the course of these extremely short-term relationships, the mother has their lifetime, while few athletes are recognizable enough to a difficult time claiming personal damage or reliance. profit off of their celebrity after their playing days are over. After all, both parties bear equal responsibility for a Simply put, these athlete fathers must care for the pregnancy, barring fraud. 5 So, if the father owes little or children they bring into this world, even if only finan- nothing to the mother, the question of what is owed to cially.9 Despite the large salaries that professional ath- the child becomes a more difficult one to answer. letes earn, they often do not pay child support, even in Further complicating the issue is the father's ability to the face of court orders directing them to pay.1 0 James pay. Athletes' fortunes shift from season to season, and Brooks, a former All-Pro running back for the Cincinnati they can quickly go from having more than enough Bengals, and Ron LeFlore, who led Major League income to support several families to having insufficient Baseball in stolen bases in 1980 with the Detroit Tigers, income to support even themselves. Athletes are differ- provide two recent cases in point. On September 2, 1999, James Brooks was arrested in Atlanta and taken to Cincinnati for his failure to pay child support. 11 Despite having earned $1 million per year at the height of his career, Brooks owed $107,705 in back child support.1 2 Athletes' fortunes shift from Brooks did not pay the money and remained in jail until the resolution of the case 1 3 in November of 1999, when he was sentenced to six months in jail plus 300 hours of season to season, and they community service after pleading no contest to the charges against him.1 4 One would assume that if Brooks can quickly go from having had the money, he would rather pay than sit in a Cincinnati jail cell. By way of contrast, Ron LeFlore was more than enough income arrested in Detroit on September 28, 1999, after attend- ing the closing ceremonies at Tiger Stadium.1 5 LeFlore was charged with failure to pay more than $50,000 in to support several families back child support.1 6 When LeFlore was ordered to pay $3,000 or go to jail, LeFlore, unlike Brooks, came up with to having insufficient income the cash the same day and immediately fled from Michigan.1 7 Brooks represents, presumably, the results to support even themselves. of poor planning and money management, while LeFlore represents what the general public hates about "dead- beat dads" who have the money but refuse to pay. This Note attempts to eliminate both problems by construct- ent from other people, or even other entertainers, as their ing a flexible system, wherein the father is motivated to careers are extremely limited in duration.