Short answer. Usually yes. Parents and others exercising parental authority are civilly liable for injuries and damages caused by the acts or omissions of their unemancipated children living in their company and under their parental authority, subject to the appropriate defences provided by law. The liability is your own, not merely the child's.

What the law says

Parents and other persons exercising parental authority shall be civilly liable for the injuries and damages caused by the acts or omissions of their unemancipated children living in their company and under their parental authority subject to the appropriate defenses provided by law.

Family Code, Article 221 — Parents' Civil Liability for Their Children. Read the full provision →

Three conditions, all of which must hold

The rule is that parents shall be civilly liable for the injuries and damages caused by the acts or omissions of their unemancipated children living in their company and under their parental authority. Unpack it and there are three requirements, not one. The child must be unemancipated, must be living in your company, and must be under your parental authority. Each is capable of failing independently, and the middle one is the one families argue about — a child who has in fact been living elsewhere for years is not in your company merely because you remain the parent.

It is not the child's liability passed on to you

This is the point most people get wrong, and it changes how a claim is answered. The article makes the parent civilly liable, in the parent's own right, for damage the child caused. So the injured party does not have to establish anything about the child's capacity or means before looking to you, and a demand addressed to your household is not misdirected. It also explains why the answer cannot be that the child has no money. The obligation the claimant is enforcing is yours.

The defences the article does not spell out

The liability is expressly made subject to the appropriate defenses provided by law, and that clause is deliberately a signpost rather than a list. The Family Code does not enumerate the defences here; they live in the general law on damages, which is where a lawyer will go to see what is available on your facts. Do not read the provision as absolute simply because it is stated flatly. Equally, do not assume a defence is available because the accusation feels unfair — this is the part of the analysis that needs the actual Civil Code provisions applied to what happened.

What matters when a demand arrives

Fix the facts the article turns on before anyone argues about amounts: the child's age at the time, where the child was actually living and with whom, who had authority over the child that day, and what the child is alleged to have done. Keep the demand letter, any messages between the families and anything showing the circumstances of the incident. Note too that the article speaks only of civil liability — it says nothing about criminal responsibility, which is governed elsewhere and answers to different rules.

Cases citing this provision

These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.

Related provisions

Note. Statute text quoted on this page is reproduced from the official enactment and is linked to the full provision. The explanation around it is general legal information from Vivas & Nobles Law Office, not legal advice. Whether it applies to your situation depends on facts only a lawyer reviewing them can assess.