Domestic Relations Law §240(1-b) and its counterpart, Family Court Act §413(1), are known as the Child Support Standards Act (CSSA). The Child Support Standards Act contains a rebuttable presumption that the application of its guidelines which result in the “basic child support obligation” will yield the correct amount of child support. This presumption may be rebutted, and the basic child support obligation adjusted, where the court finds that the non-custodial parent’s support obligation is ”unjust or inappropriate.”
Before the passage of the Child Support Standards Act, the common law “doctrine of necessaries” entitled the child to support in accordance with the fathers’ “condition and station in life.” Garlock v. Garlock, 279 N.Y. 337 (1939); De Brauwere v. De Brauwere, 203 N.Y. 460 (1911)). Today, this obligation is reciprocal. Medical Business Associates v. Steiner, 183 A.D.2d 86 (2d Dep’t 1992); Our Lady of Lourdes Memorial Hosp. v. Frey, 152 A.D.2d 73 (3d Dep’t 1989). Although the obligation is reciprocal, the necessaries doctrine has not been changed as a matter of common law. Lichtman v. Grossbard, 73 N.Y.2d 792 (1988).
