Bob CollinsOccasionally, sanity triumphs, and someone can thank a judge for that.
The Newark Star Ledger reports today that Rachel Canning, the teenager who sued her parents to pay for her college education, despite moving out on them, has returned home.
“My clients will be known for this for quite some time… As far as my clients are concerned it’s over, it’s done,” the attorney for the parents said at a news conference this afternoon. Then he begged the media to leave the family alone, which isn’t going to happen.
New Jersey Family Division Judge Peter Bogaard should be standing a little taller with today’s news because if he hadn’t refused to grant the girl an emergency order requiring the parents to provide financial assistance, it’d be a bigger family tragedy.
The girl had left home because she didn’t want to live by parental rules.
“What kind of parents would the Cannings be if they did not discipline her?” the judge asked. “The Cannings had the right to set up rules.”
But Bogaard did more than rule on the legality — or even morality — of the case. He called for both sides to use a little common sense.
“This family is well worth the effort to salvage,” he said. “It does appear more energy has been utilized to tear up this family than to figure out how it can be brought back together.”
For sure the family appears to be a mess, but perhaps because a civil servant did his job, it’s at least back together.
