## Facts

- The Public Welfare Division issued a final administrative order requiring Roy Cannon to pay $384 for public assistance provided to his indigent mother under Oregon’s Relatives’ Responsibility Act (ORS 416.010 et seq.).
- Cannon sought judicial review, claiming he was exempt from liability under ORS 416.030(2)(c) because he had been “abandoned or driven from the home as a child.”
- The record showed that when Cannon was 15 years old, he voluntarily left home to work in logging camps.
- During his 16th year, Cannon returned home and found his mother living with a man; Cannon was unsure whether the mother and the man were married.
- When Cannon arrived, the man met him at the door and refused to let him enter the house.
- Cannon testified that his mother was present during the encounter and did not speak up or intervene.
- Cannon was allowed to return later to retrieve his belongings, but he did not return to his mother’s home again until years later, after leaving the Army.
- At the agency level, the hearing officer concluded Cannon had emancipated himself and therefore was not “abandoned or deserted” for purposes of the exemption.
- Cannon petitioned for review in the Oregon Court of Appeals, which granted certiorari.

## Issues

1. Did Cannon prove he was “abandoned or driven from the home as a child” within the meaning of ORS 416.030(2)(c), where he left home at 15 to work and later was refused entry by a man living with his mother while she remained silent?
2. Must the exemption in ORS 416.030(2)(c) be supported by evidence that the parent acted with bad purpose or wrongful intent in expelling or abandoning the child?

## Decision

- The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed the Public Welfare Division’s final order requiring Cannon to pay $384.
- The court held Cannon did not qualify for the ORS 416.030(2)(c) exemption because he presented no evidence that his mother expelled or abandoned him with bad purpose or wrongful intent.
- The court stated it did not need to decide whether Cannon had emancipated himself, even though the hearing officer relied on emancipation.

## Legal Principles

- Under ORS 416.030(2)(c), a child is not exempt from liability to support or reimburse assistance for a needy parent unless the parent’s abandonment of the child or expulsion of the child from the home is shown.
- As construed in Cheatham v. Juras, “driven from the home” requires proof that the expulsion was accompanied by a bad purpose or wrongful intent by the parent.
- A child’s voluntary departure from the home to work, without more, does not establish that the parent abandoned the child or drove the child from the home.
- A parent’s failure to challenge another person’s refusal to allow the child into the home, standing alone, is not enough to show that the parent expelled the child with the required wrongful intent.
- When the record lacks evidence meeting the statutory standard for an exemption, an agency order imposing liability under the Relatives’ Responsibility Act will be affirmed.

## Conclusion

The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed the welfare administrator’s order requiring Roy Cannon to reimburse $384 in assistance paid to his mother, holding that Cannon failed to prove the statutory exemption for a child “abandoned or driven from the home,” because there was no evidence his mother acted with bad purpose or wrongful intent and the court therefore did not reach the emancipation question.


Cannon v. Juras, 15 Or. App. 265, 515 P.2d 428 (1973)