Front Porch Punditry
»
News
»
National News
»
Good News for Parents: See What a Judge Told a ‘Spoiled’ Teen Who Moved Out and Then Sued Them for College Tuition
Zitat A northern New Jersey honor student who says her parents kicked her out of the house when she turned 18 is now suing them, asking a court to make them support her and pay for her college tuition.
A judge in Morristown Tuesday ruled against immediately forcing Rachel Canning’s parents — her father a retired police chief — to pay her $650 weekly child support and pay for her remaining year of high school tuition, as she requested in a lawsuit filed last week. Judge Peter Bogaard scheduled a hearing for next month to decide whether to require her parents to pay for Canning’s college tuition.
“Do we want to establish a precedent where parents live in basic fear of establishing rules of the house?” Bogaard asked.
The New Jersey Star Ledger reported Bogaard’s caution to legal counsel in his initial ruling against an emergency order. It “would represent essentially a new law or a new way of interpreting an existing law,” he said. “A kid could move out and then sue for an XBox, an iPhone or a 60-inch television.”
Court documents show frequent causes of parent-teenage tension — boyfriends and alcohol — taken to an extreme. In court filings, there are accusations and denials, but one thing is clear: the girl, who has been labeled as “spoiled,”left home Oct. 30, two days before she turned 18 after a tumultuous stretch during which her parents separated and reconciled and the teen began getting into uncharacteristic trouble at school.
In court filings, Canning’s parents, retired Lincoln Park police Chief Sean Canning and his wife Elizabeth, said their daughter voluntarily left home because she didn’t want to abide by reasonable household rules, such as being respectful, keeping a curfew, doing a few chores and ending a relationship with a boyfriend her parents say is a bad influence. They say that shortly before she turned 18, she told her parents that she would be an adult and could do whatever she wanted.
She said her parents are abusive, contributed to an eating disorder she developed and pushed her to get a basketball scholarship. They say they were supportive, helped her through the eating disorder and paid for her to go to a private school where she would not get as much playing time in basketball as she would have at a public school.
They also say she lied in her court filing and to child welfare workers who are involved in the case.
“We love our child and miss her. This is terrible. It’s killing me and my wife. We have a child we want home. We’re not Draconian and now we’re getting hauled into court. She’s demanding that we pay her bills but she doesn’t want to live at home and she’s saying, ‘I don’t want to live under your rules,’ ” Sean Canning said, according to the Daily Record of Parsippany. “We’re heartbroken, but what do you do when a child says ‘I don’t want your rules but I want everything under the sun and you to pay for it?’”
“Mr. and Mrs. Canning did not tell Rachel to move out; rather they advised her that she is welcome home so long as she abides by their rules under their roof, which is completely reasonable,” the parents’ attorney Laurie Rush-Masuret wrote the court, according to the newspaper. “However, Rachel decided that she does not want to live within her parents’ sphere of influence and voluntarily moved out, essentially emancipating herself. Obviously, she cannot decide she will no longer live within her parents’ sphere of influence and simultaneously seek payment from them for support.”
Rachel Canning been living in Rockaway Township with the family of her best friend. The friend’s father, former Morris County Freeholder John Inglesino, is paying for the lawsuit.
This is too funny Lawyer on Chris Christie’s SCHOOL FUNDING task force is bankrolling teen suing parents for college cash
The prominent New Jersey attorney who is funding the legal costs of 18-year-old Morris Catholic High School senior Rachel Canning in her lawsuit against her own parents serves on Gov. Chris Christie’s School Funding Task Force.
The attorney is John P. Inglesino, the managing partner at Inglesino, Wyciskala & Taylor, LLC, a 10-attorney firm in Parsippany, N.J.
Gov. Christie’s School Funding Task Force exists to eradicate abuse and fraud from New Jersey’s education system, explains the Common Sense Institute of New Jersey. Its goals are to study the use of free and reduced school lunches as a way of determining “at-risk” students and, generally, to pinpoint parts of the state’s school-funding formula that are subject to fraud.
Christie created the task force in March 2012 with an executive order.
Canning, a cheerleader and a lacrosse player, moved out of her home in the fall and is currently staying with the Inglesino family.
The 18-year-old adult seeks a declaration from a judge preventing her emancipation into the real world under the theory that she must remain a nonemancipated dependent. She wants her parents, Sean and Elizabeth Canning, to pay an outstanding $5,306 Morris Catholic High tuition bill. The grown woman also wants her parents to pay for living and transportation expenses for the foreseeable future. (RELATED: SPOILED BRAT: New Jersey teen sues parents because they won’t pay her college tuition)
The Cannings say their daughter left their house on her own accord.
“I’m dumbfounded,” father and retired police chief Sean Canning told CBS New York. ”So is my wife. So are my other daughters.”
Inglesino was the mayor of Rockaway Township from 1996 to 2002. Now in private practice, he specializes in government law and real estate law. He is the township attorney for Parsippany-Troy Hills, and he represents other Garden State government entities in various capacities.
He brags that Politicker NJ named him among the Top 100 “powerful people” in New Jersey in 2013.
Nothing in his lengthy biography suggests that he has any expertise in education. The word “education” is, in fact, completely absent.
There are two mentions of the word “school” in the 580-word bio. One boasts that Gov. Christie named Inglesino to the School Funding Task Force. The other notes that he attended Seton Hall University School of Law.
Inglesino also once had something to do with litigation involving the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
Thus far, an attorney (not Inglesino) who is representing Rachel Canning has racked up bills of about $13,000, according to the Daily Record.
Hilarious. So the guy Christie Creme has working on public school issues in NJ sends his kids to a private Catholic school. Swell. I also see his law firm went from making $16K in lobbying money in 2010 to making $1.3 Million with his pal Christie in office. Nothing dirty going on here at all.