Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: Pennsylvania is the one state with a documented recent enforcement judgment: in 2012 a court held an adult son liable for roughly 92,943 dollars of his mother’s nursing-home bill, and the statute’s own exemptions are narrow, insufficient ability to pay, or a parent who abandoned the child for ten years during minority.
What Pennsylvania actually sets out
| What the statute sets out | What it says |
|---|---|
| 23 Pa. Cons. Stat. Sec. 4603(a) | “All of the following individuals have the responsibility to care for and maintain or financially assist an indigent person, regardless of whether the indigent person is a public charge:… The spouse of the indigent person… A child of the indigent person… A parent of the indigent person.” |
| The only two exemptions | “If an individual does not have sufficient financial ability to support the indigent person… A child shall not be liable for the support of a parent who abandoned the child and persisted in the abandonment for a period of ten years during the child’s minority.” |
| Civil, with contempt as the enforcement backstop | “If an individual liable for support under this section fails to comply with an order under this section, the court shall schedule a contempt hearing… the court may hold the individual in contempt of court and may sentence the individual to up to six months’ imprisonment.” |
| Cap or time limit | No statute of limitations is stated anywhere in the chapter; the amount is set by the court, with a formula-based cap only for a specific medical-assistance-for-the-aged category outside public nursing-home care. |
| Case law, Health Care and Retirement Corp. of America v. Pittas | “Nothing in that statute requires a movant or a court to consider other sources of income or to stay its determination pending the resolution of a claim for medical assistance… it entered a verdict in favor of HCR in the amount of $92,943.41… Judgment affirmed.” |
How it works in practice
- Pittas confirmed a nursing home does not have to exhaust the parent’s own resources, pursue other liable relatives such as siblings or a spouse, or wait for a pending Medicaid application before collecting from one adult child.
- The Superior Court is an intermediate appellate court; Pittas is binding within Pennsylvania and merely persuasive elsewhere, even though it is often cited as though it set a national rule.
- The only two defenses are the child’s own inability to pay and ten straight years of the parent’s abandonment during the child’s minority, nothing broader is written into the statute.
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 Pennsylvania.
What this page does not settle
- The Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal (allocatur denied, cited as 63 A.3d 1248, 619 Pa. 706 (Pa. 2013)); that denial citation is corroborated but the underlying court record for the denial itself was not independently fetched this session.
- This page reads the state’s own current code and 1 other primary source. 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
- 23 Pa. Cons. Stat. Sec. 4601-4605 (Pennsylvania General Assembly)
- Health Care and Retirement Corp. of America v. Pittas, 2012 PA Super 96, opinion text
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.