Teen loses first battle to make parents pay fees

Reuters/Morristown, New JerseyA New Jersey student who says her parents abandoned her when she turned 18 lost a first round on Tuesday in the lawsuit she filed against them for school costs and living expenses, a case that could set a precedent for a family’s obligation to support a child who has left home.A family court judge denied a request by Rachel Canning of Lincoln Park, New Jersey, to have her parents temporarily resume paying her tuition and living expenses. He set another hearing date for next month.Canning, 18, wants her parents to pay the remaining $5,000 in tuition owed to the Morris Catholic High School, where she is a senior, and she wants access to a college fund that was set up for her.The cheerleader and lacrosse player claims her parents kicked her out of the house in November 2013 after she turned 18, the age of legal adulthood. She wound up living with a friend’s family, she said, and the upheaval has jeopardised her educational future.Judge Peter Bogaard rejected her request for a temporary payout of about $600 a month in support as well as tuition for her private high school, which has waived fees while the case is settled.In court, the teen said her parents remain obligated to help her with food, transportation, high school tuition and her college education. She filed the lawsuit last week claiming that she is still dependent on them for support because she is still in school and not yet legally emancipated under state law.“They left her high and dry because they didn’t want to pay,” attorney Tanya Helfand told the court. “Now at the age of 18 is not the point to do this.”Her parents, Sean and Elizabeth Canning, said their daughter left home voluntarily, telling the court that she had severe behavioural problems, including underage drinking, and had been suspended from school.“She can come home tonight. There is no abuse. There is no neglect,” attorney Laurie Rush-Masuret said.Sean Canning, a former police chief in Lincoln Park, told local television station WCBS-TV on Monday he was  “dumbfounded” that he was being sued by one of his three daughters.He called Rachel “rebellious” and said her college fund was not in jeopardy.“We have a college that’s available to her - there’s no doubt about that. But it’s the equivalent ... of going shopping at a high-end store and sending somebody the bill,” he told the station.Meanwhile, Rachel Canning is staying in Rockaway Township with a friend’s family. That friend’s father, attorney Jaime Inglesino, is fronting the cash for the lawsuit and seems to be playing some advisory role in the litigation.The defendants in the case – the parents – have also hired an attorney, Laurie Rush-Masuret.Rush-Masuret claims that her clients never told their daughter to move out. “Rather they advised her that she is welcome home so long as she abides by their rules under their roof.”“Rachel decided that she does not want to live within her parents’ sphere of influence and voluntarily moved out, essentially emancipating herself,” the attorney wrote. “Obviously, she cannot decide she will no longer live within her parents’ sphere of influence and simultaneously seek payment from them for support.”Rush-Masuret also said the high school senior had been seeing a therapist, was supposed to be taking some sort of medication, had been suspended from school twice in the  fall semester, ignored curfews and bullied her younger sister, according to the Record.New Jersey law may favour the 18-year-old plaintiff. As the Record notes, an important state court decision holds, “A child’s admittance and attendance at college will overcome the rebuttable presumption that a child may be emancipated at age 18.”