Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: North Dakota’s statute looks like a general filial-support law at first, but its own second subsection strips that away: a creditor can only recover from a parent or adult child who benefited from a disqualifying asset transfer or acted in bad faith to avoid paying, capped at the value transferred.
What North Dakota actually sets out
| What the statute sets out | What it says |
|---|---|
| N.D. Cent. Code Sec. 14-09-10(1) | “Each parent and every adult child of an adult who is unable to support oneself shall maintain that adult to the extent of the ability of each.” |
| The narrowing subsection that actually controls, Sec. 14-09-10(2) | “A creditor may not recover under this duty of support unless the:… Recovery sought by a creditor is for the furnishing of necessary health services, which may include medical and long-term care services… recovery sought is from a parent or adult child who received a direct benefit from a disqualifying transfer of an asset under section 50-06.2-07 or 50-24.1-02… recovery being sought from this parent or adult child does not exceed the fair market value, including any gain, resulting from the disqualifying transfer; and… disqualifying transfer occurred within five years of the receipt of the necessary health services or application for medical assistance.” |
| The bad-faith alternative path, Sec. 14-09-10(3) | “A creditor may recover under this duty to support if the:… recovery is sought by a creditor for the furnishing of necessary health services… recovery is sought from a parent or adult child who acted in bad faith by misappropriating, misusing, or diverting income or assets of the other adult to prevent or avoid payment for necessary health services… recovery being sought from the parent or adult child does not exceed the fair market value, including any gain, resulting from the disqualifying transfer; and… bad faith action occurred within five years of the receipt of the necessary health services.” |
| Cap or time limit | Capped at the fair market value of the disqualifying transfer or diverted assets; five-year lookback from the health services or the bad-faith act. |
| Case law | Two matters referenced in secondary coverage, described there as involving roughly 104,000 and 43,000 dollar nursing-home bills, could not be independently located and read this session, and it is unconfirmed whether they predate the current, narrower statutory language. Not cited as confirmed case law. |
How it works in practice
- A nursing home cannot use this statute against a child who received no improper transfer and did nothing to divert assets, no matter how unable to support themselves the parent is, subsection 1’s broad-sounding duty is fenced in almost entirely by subsection 2.
- This functions much closer to a fraudulent-transfer or Medicaid-clawback provision than to a general indigent-parent statute like Pennsylvania’s.
- Both recovery paths, disqualifying transfer or bad-faith diversion, cap the amount recoverable at the fair market value of what actually moved, not at the full cost of care.
What a filial responsibility statute is, why most of them sit unused, and which state is the one with documented recent enforcement is explained on the filial responsibility laws by state page. How this fits alongside the other two mechanisms that can turn a parent’s medical debt into a living person’s debt is explained on who actually owes medical bills after a death, and what a nursing home may and may not ask a family member to sign at admission is on the admission agreement traps page. This page is the record for North Dakota.
What this page does not settle
- This page could not confirm, from a primary source, the date North Dakota narrowed this statute to its current transfer-based form, nor independently verify the two reported enforcement matters found in secondary coverage; if those matters in fact predate the amendment, they may reflect a broader, no-longer-current version of the law.
- This page reads the state’s own current code. A state can amend or repeal this section without the page around it changing, and a detail specific to your situation, such as a pending Medicaid application or a prior period of estrangement, can change which part of the statute applies.
- A statute existing is not the same question as whether it has ever been used. Enforcement history, where it exists at all, is noted on this page; where none was found, that is stated plainly rather than left blank.
- Every quotation here was read against the source on September 4, 2026. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and the statute’s own defenses and procedural requirements matter as much as its liability language.
Whether this statute actually reaches a given family’s situation is decided by a court on the specific facts, not by this page. Nothing here is legal advice, and no one should sign anything or send money on the strength of a web page.
Sources
The sources above were retrieved and read against the state text on September 4, 2026. Every quotation on this page was checked against those bytes.