Quebec dad, sued by daughter after grounding, loses his appeal

Shouldn't this thread be locked before it goes south?

No more than the moderators who are indiscriminately locking threads.

I'm more concerned that the moderators might ground me.

I'm just planning on shopping for music on my vacation. I need to pickup the new Diana Krall and Neil Young CDs, and see what gems I can find in Backstreet Records in Saint John..

Will leave to appeal be given since relief in this case is impossible?

Well, the good news is that with Permissive Mom, she should be able to find herself a new father figure in those internet chat rooms in no time.

It was the child who originally sued the father because the mother undermined his decision about the school trip. It's not ALWAYS the father's fault just because he's the father, you know.  That said, I agree with you that it certainly WOULDN'T be the first time a parent tried to get at the other parent through the children.  Parental alienation is real, and awful.  And from what I've heard anecdotally from a couple of counsellors who deal with it, contrary to popular belief, they see a lot more men engaging in it than women.

I don't think there is anything to indicate such a thing on the part of the father in this case, though, beyond wishful thinking.  The father set a clear and reasonable limit, and the mother appears to have taken advantage of a dispute between the father and the child by taking the child's side.  And the result is that the child now no longer speaks to her father.  If anyone is manipulating the kid, it doesn't sound to me like it's the father.  I don't think he is the problem in this case.

I wish I could find that old babble thread - I seem to remember us reading other articles that had more information in them.  I seem to remember that this was against the backdrop of a custody case.

Snert wrote:

Well, the good news is that with Permissive Mom, she should be able to find herself a new father figure in those internet chat rooms in no time.

Exactly.  I'm being facetious.

martin seems to think that a 12 year old girl visiting internet chat rooms that have been deemed off-limits by a parent is no biggie.  I think it's worth being concerned about.

Okay I get it then, I thought he was talking about permissive mom getting her a new father figure through chat rooms.

Michelle: "The father set a clear and reasonable limit, and the mother appears to have taken advantage of a dispute between the father and the child by taking the child's side.  And the result is that the child now no longer speaks to her father. "

Saying Mom "took advantage of the dispute" is trial of intent - a disputable interpretation, just as is the assumption that a child's anger at her dad is necessarily Mom's fault. Maybe the mother felt that barring all chat activity wasn't such a reasonable limit. Maybe she felt - as I do - that canceling their daughter's crucial spring camp just because Dad couldn't get his way was over the top. And maybe there is a custody dispute that is the significant subtext of this, with the non-caretaking parent throwing his weight around and trying to build his case for disposessing that woman (right up to the Supreme Court "if he must").

Plenty of that going around, alas.

BTW it's interesting to see Conservatives going ballistic over this (No, I don't mean you toddsschneider!).

For instance, this from http://legalpublication.blogspot.com (one of those almost-lawyer pundits always harping about paternal authority):

"(...)In Quebec, a judge ruled that a father had no right to stop his 12-year-old daughter from going on a school trip. The father has filed an appeal of the decision even though the girl has already gone on the trip.

The other side of the coin is that in most jurisdictions including Quebec, even if a parent has legal custody, both parents retain parental authority. In other words custodial parents, "even if one parent has custody, the parents still have to make decisions jointly." This is a nearly universal law that too many custodial parents illegally ignore.
The girl's lawyer was Lucie Fortin. Ms. Fortin apparently feels this is an isolated ruling with no ramifications for others. Ms. Fortin, you miss the point. It has great presidential value for this child's future interaction with her father.(...)"

 "Presidential value"???

Or this from self-avowed Conservative "North Mommy":
http://politics.upnorthmommy.com/2009/04/quebec-judge-undermines-parents-rights-in-canada/

 (...)A Quebec father who was taken to court by his 12-year-old daughter after he grounded her in June 2008 has lost his appeal.

Quebec Superior Court rejected the Gatineau father's appeal of a lower court ruling that said his punishment was too severe for the wrongs he said his daughter committed.

The father is "flabbergasted," his lawyer Kim Beaudoin told CBC News.

In its ruling, issued Monday, the province's court of appeal declared the girl was caught up in a "very rare" set of circumstances, and her father didn't have sufficient grounds to contest the court's earlier decision.

The family's legal wrangling started with a dispute over the girl's internet use.

She had been living with her father after her parents split up when he grounded her in 2008 for defying his order to stay off the internet. The father caught her chatting on websites he had blocked, and alleged his daughter was posting "inappropriate pictures" of herself online.

Her punishment: she was banned from her Grade 6 graduation trip to Quebec City in June 2008, for which her mother had already granted permission.

The father - who had custody - withheld his written permission for the trip, prompting the school to refuse to let the girl go with her classmates.

That's when the girl asked for help from the lawyer who represented her in her parents' separation, and petitioned the court to intervene in her case.

The judge sided with the daughter and said the father - the father - overstepped his boundaries by grounding her, so the judge allowed the girl to go on her trip.

Can you believe that?! A judge told this father he had no right to ground his own daughter. Of course, this father has absolutely no authority in this girl's life anymore because no matter what he may try to do to discipline her, she can just sue him and have his punishment overturned.

"Either way, he doesn't have authority over this child anymore. She sued him because she doesn't respect his rules," Beaudoin said. "It's very hard to raise a child who is the boss."

The girl - who now lives with her mother - doesn't have much of a relationship with her dad now, Beaudoin said.

"We went from a child who wanted to live with her father, and after all this has been done, they're not speaking anymore."

"We have a lot of work to re-establish a link between those two."

Beaudoin believes the ruling reflects a loss of moral authority in Quebec's court system.

In Quebec's court system? No. This reflects a loss of moral authority in Canada's parents, who no longer have any. (...)

Somehow I doubt these moral screeds would be out in full force if it was a mother whose authoritarian decisions were being challenged by a child.

And I have known children who left Dad's place for Mom when they became old enough to be entitled that choice, over Dad's objections, and they were not leaving the straight-and-narrow to rush toward licence, more the contrary. And taking them back was no picnic or "victory" for the mothers involved. (But this is anecdotal. The youth involved should decide when they are old enough, without being seen as pawns for vindictive mothers when their decisions happen to piss off Dad.)

Actually, Martin, I think people would be just as outraged if it was the mother's decision being challenged.  The point is, all the father did was ground her.  He wasn't being in any way abusive, and it's not like the punishment was horribly severe.

What this judge did was to reward a child (and her other parent) for playing the "If you don't let me do x, I'm going to go live with (dad/mom)!" 

It's natural for a child to play parents off on each other in a divorce situation.  Mature parents who want the best for their children don't allow their children to get away with it, and they support each other's parenting decisions.  In this case, the mother refused to support the father's reasonable parenting decision.  Even if you don't completely agree with a decision that the other parent makes, as a parent who gives a shit about your child's mental health, you should be supporting the other parent unless they're doing something truly abusive or outrageously unreasonable.

I don't get along very well with my son's father - I don't like him and he doesn't like me.  But when his father sets boundaries for my son, and my son complains to me about them, I don't tell him, "Oh, you poor thing!  Daddy grounded you from the television for a week because you did x?  Oh, poopsie, it's okay, you can come and live with me, and I'll let you watch television!"  I tell him, "Oh, that's too bad - I guess Daddy really wants you to understand that it's not okay to do x, right?"  I acknowledge his feelings, and then I support the parenting decision. 

Doesn't sound like that's what happened in this case.

I find it troubling that in this day and age a parent was trying to find a way to stop a child from posting pictures of herself on the web and it was not backed up by another parent.  These pictures were discribed as 'innapropriate' above.  Having had similar things occuring in a daughters' peer group there are way to many parents that do not understand the dangers they are letting their children swim around it.  We would never allow our children to play in the middle of a flooding river, but the one parent (in this case the mother) made a really, really bad decision in condoning the behaviour. 

Many kids and their parents naively think it is all just innocent fun, but much of what is occurring is putting more and more pressure on young people, mostly girls, but no exclusively, to be more and more sexualized at a younger and younger age.  When my daughter came to us to talk about how uncomfortable she was about what was going on and let us into that world I was shocked at how graphic some of the pictures and postings were by some of her peers.  Now I am no prude and we are pretty unrestrictive about what books and so on our children can pick up, our main concern is whether they are emotionally mature enough to handle some of the situations, so our daughter was strong enough to resist the pull.  But man some of this stuff was veering very solidly into porn territory.  Hell I like European Art films so it takes quite a bit to shock me, but I was really, really shocked.

I can't know that was what was going on in this case, but I think an awful lot of adults are very naive about what is going on in the age group this kid was. 

That the courts then backed that up is troubling.  Very, very troubling in the kind of message it sends.

Also, don't forget that the picture we are getting of what actually happened is entirely defined by Dad's lawyer, with carefully chosen just-vague-enough assertions. Is that the full truth? Or is it coloured by a selective view, one that isn't subject to evidentiary criteria?

In general, I am wary of trials by media: they often veer close to defamation, as the suggestion that this young woman was posting obscene pictures of herself on a chat website. The judges who had access to both sides of the picture and who were in a position to assess whatever actual evidence was proferred ended up supporting the child's version, not a common occurence in the justice system (who is not known to be soft on child pornography).

(Back-edited for clarity) We should be wary of accepting the unilateral picture painted by the person who instigated this new stage of a natural confrontation by suing his daughter after she won from the trial judge permission to go forward with her field trip. He was rebuffed on appeal and we ought to be careful about denouncing that decision on partial and questionable evidence. We may do so, in part, because we project on the situation our own beefs with "bad" mothers and our own fears about children on line.

He didn't sue her, he appealed the decision on a point of law. 

It should be noted that the Court of appeal didn't analyze this on the basis of the approprietness of the punishment, but on the merits of parental authority.

When the parents were fighting over child custody, the child was appointed an attorney. She simply called the attorney when this all happened - she wasn't encouraged by her mother to do so. 

The issue was that the father claimed that because he has custody of the child, the parental autority is his, therefore he could make these decsions without consulting the mother.  That argument is flawed. In Quebec, parents shared parental autority, regardless of who has physical custody.

From a social perspective, sure this whole issue is ridiculous.  Would it help if the mother supported the father's intervention? Of course.  But you know, people get separated, they hate each other and they do irrational things.  It overburdens the legal system, because people act like irrational beings.  Its a real shame, but its the reality of the family courts. 

But from a legal perspective, the judgement is sound. What was the court to do? It could have chosen not to intervene. But the issue was presented to it with a solid legal point, i.e. the exercice of parental authority.  The court also had to determine if the child could ask the court to intervene, and the answer is yes. In this specific case. The mother did not contest the child's position, and if the court would have refused to hear the child, she would have filed a claim asking the same thing.  The court did specify that this must remain an exceptional recourse.  The civil code also specifies that a child can petition the court, but can only do so with the permission of a judge. So is this going to be become an overused recourse when a child disagrees with a parent's autority? No, and the court warns against that.

The father might appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, but in my opinion, the Supreme Court has no basis for overturning the decision. (The Supreme Court can hear the case, btw, on a point of a law, even if the object is irrelevant at this point).  The Court of Appeal simply applied the law. 

In closing, the real issue here is not the intervention of the Courts but the sheer ridiculousness of parents not being able to agree and be civil to one another.  We overuse the family courts on a daily basis.  When I come out of family court, my eyes always hurt do to the amount of time I spend rolling them ...

The child chose to go live with her mother because she disagreed with her father's parental decision.  Why the mother would allow that is the real issue.  Michelle gave a perfect example on how to deal with a child who complains about a parent to the other parent. Sadly, not everyone is that rationnal.  And this might displease some, but the manipulator in this case is the child.  She has effectively learned how to manipulate her parents.  Can you blame her? It works, and she gets her way. 

Exactly.  And I'm sorry, but I don't believe that the mother had nothing to do with the daughter's decision to go to the lawyer.  The mother clearly did not back up the father's limit-setting because she not only told her daughter she could go on the trip, but she also helped her daughter play the "I'm going to go live with Mom because you grounded me" card.  Would it have gotten this far if the mother had said to the daughter, "I might not have done the same thing as Dad did in this case, honey, but you have to follow the rules he sets for the computer, and you will have to face the consequences for not following the rules"?  No, I don't think so.  It looks like she saw a chance to get custody and grabbed it.

Believe me, I know how the mother feels.  When your kid comes to you and complains about the other parent, and you dislike the other parent and would love to be the one the child stays with more, the temptation is there to take advantage of the situation and encourage the child to escalate the conflict with the other parent so they'll want to be with you instead.

But parents who give a shit about their children don't do that.  Because the child suffers.  In this case, to the point where the child no longer sees the father.  Congratulations, mom, you just totally fucked up your child's life and her relationship with her father.  Hope it was worth it!

As for whether kids can choose who to live with at that age - yes, their wishes are taken into account, and that's reasonable.  But that doesn't mean a child of that age can't be manipulated by their parents, or be encouraged to be manipulative towards one parent by the other parent.  It's not the child's fault.  It's the fault of the parent(s) when manipulation goes this far.  These parents, the mother in particular, seriously need some co-parenting courses, stat.

In other news, judge tells disgruntled fathers to go jump off a bridge next time:

[url=http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Bridge+protesters+found+guilty+misch... protesters found guilty of mischief - Span closed for 21/2 hours; Defendants claim courts are biased against fathers in custody disputes[/color][/url]

Ya, I do not much like the way this is being conceptually framed based upon spurious accountings and  personal suppositions either.

"In other news, judge tells disgruntled fathers to go jump off a bridge next time:"

You know, I work in a plant where the work was hard and dangerous when we were young, and even today it's no picknic. And we worked at times, seven days a week. I remember working from New Years to Easter without a day off, on rotating shifts-- and when it comes to those who got recognized as overtime hogs, I never even got on anyone's radar. Add to that rampant substance abuse, and you could say, our place was and still is, a divorce factory.

So, there's few annectdotes I have not heard. Mostly from the male side. And, I've gone through it myself.

While I obviously think there's something seethingly wrong with the whole scam in the divorce industrial complex, I'd never, ever, try to address those issues from a gender vs. gender perspective. It's a red herring-- it's not where the fight is.

Those two knobs got what was comming to them.

remind wrote:

 

How would any of you parents out there like your child being up for such intense judgemental public scrutiny, when the matter should have been private?

 

In almost all cases I would agree with this statement. But once you go to court (or your lawyer does - or your mother - who knows what really happened here), all privacy disappears, except for the child's name. Court decisions and proceedings are public in this country (again, except when we're suppressing "terrorists").

"Going to court was a last resort," said Lucie Fortin, a legal aid attorney who represented the girl. "The question was that there was a problem between the father and the mother, and the child asked the court to intervene because it was important to her.

"The trip was very important to her."

More important than the long term relationship with her father? I can certainly see how, in the mind of a 12 year old, the immediate concern of a school trip can seem like it. However, it's because of this exact thing kids get appointed lawyers-- an adult-- to represent the kid's best interest.

Can anyone say that Fortin has done this?

I agree with you about Father's Rights groups.  But the case that this thread about isn't a narrative from a father's rights group.  It's a news story, and both the father's lawyer AND the child's lawyer were given space for their comments in it.

What I find telling about the comments after the story, and some of the commentary I've read on right-wing sites about this case, just browsing around a bit, is the people who blame the CHILD for this.  People calling her a spoiled brat, a spoiled princess, a rotten whatever.  That's crap.  She's just a kid, acting like any other kid might.  It's the adults in this case - the judge, her lawyer, her mother - who are the problem.  Not the kid.  The kid is just doing what any kid might if they've been given too much power.  And the sad thing is, she's going to suffer the emotional consequences when she gets older - the sadness over her estrangement from her father, the guilt (even though it's not her fault), etc.

I'd like to know what the mother is going to have to say to the kid when she's 30 years old, no longer considers a little school field trip to be the end of the world, realizes that her mother encouraged her to dump her father over such a mundane little incident so that she could win custody of her, and feels all this regret over losing one of her parents for a big chunk of her childhood and early adulthood.  Because parents can turn kids against the other parent quite successfully, but the fact is, later in life, the adult children often realize what was done to them, and then they have to deal with all the emotional baggage that goes with it. 

Tommy_Paine wrote:

 

Just a general question. If we were to set up a family court system that was engineered to make as much money for lawyers as possible, with the social and economic needs of children and parents just an after thought, how much different would it look from the system we currently have?

 

 You know, it's easy to blame the lawyers in these types of cases.  I always say that lawyers who practice in family law do not need to multiply proceedures and create all these problems they're accused of creating just to make as much money as possible.  Clients are willing to do that all on their own.

Family law is very emotional and people gets blinded by hatred and vengeance.  THAT'S why the system is the way it is.  As a lawyer who practiced for a number of years in family law, I can assure you that I spent more time telling clients that it was NOT worth filing X or Y procedure than the contrary.  I spent more time explaining to clients how much easier their case could get resolved if they started being rational. But the reality is, they don't listen.  And you know what, I give them the options.  You can fight or you can mediate.  Mediation is better for you and your child. You prefer to fight? Fine. And as like to point out as often as I can, if at the end of day you want to pay me money to get half the cleaning supplies, you do that. 

And lets clear one thing up.  Is the child manipulating the parents? Yes, she is.  Is she a bad person because of it? Nope. She's 12.  She's just learning how to get her way in the big world. We're worried about her reading the blog and seeing that people might insinuate that she's manipulative? Big deal.  Do you think she doesn't know that she completely manipulated her mother to get what she wanted?

Yes, its hard for a mother to be in the situation where a child isn't happy with the other parent's decision.  Reasonable people deal with it like Michelle suggested.  Others pay lawyers.  If the child would have chosen to live with her mother because there was abuse at her father's house, because she didn't eat often enough, because she didn't get along with her step-mom, whatever, then she would have been entitled to change the custody arrangement.  But no, she went to live with her mother because her father would not let her go on a two day class trip.  Was it important to her? Yes.  Was it important to her father that she not post innapropriate pictures of herself of the web? Yes.  And which of these issues weighs more in the big picture you think?