In Re Appeal No. 321

Lowe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The juvenile appellant was found to be delinquent for having broken into a grocery store in company with another. On the same date that he was found delinquent, his mother was ordered to make full restitution. While acknowledging the constitutionality of the vicarious liability imposed upon parents by Courts Art. § 3-839, Matter of Sorrel, 20 Md. App. 179 , on this appeal she enticingly questions the constitutionality of-the enforcement clause of that section which gives the court: “. . . full power to cite for contempt for a violation thereof if the facts of a particular case before him indicates sufficient ability of such parent to comply with such order.” Appellant argues that the exercise of contempt power to enforce a money judgment violates Art. Ill, § 38 of the Maryland Constitution, prohibiting imprisonment for debt.

The only exception to that prohibition is for the support of a wife or dependent children. That exception was provided for by constitutional amendment as part of § 38. Enforcement by Contempt Unfortunately the mother’s argument is premature. Although the debt was incurred, she has not been held in contempt for violation nor has payment of the restitution order been otherwise enforced.

Consequently she is unharmed and unaffected, and her argument is only hypothetically posed on the basis of what might eventually happen. “The best teaching of judicial experience admonishes us not to entertain constitutional questions in advance of the strictest necessity.” Minner v. Minner, 19 Md. ⁸⁴ App. 154, 158 quoting Wilkins v. State, 1 16 Md. App. 587, 598 ; see also United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17, 21 . Intriguing as it appears, the issue must await determination until it comes to us on surer footing. The generally awkward posture in which the case is presented to us crystallizes the inherent procedural complications of the novel concept of vicarious liability. It is incongruously codified as a juvenile cause, appears to be a civil judgment, and is enforceable by