New Jersey Courts Continue to Consider Parents’ Rights and Obligations
The rights of fathers in New Jersey are being hotly debated. The New Jersey Supreme Court had been scheduled to hear a case in April involving the obligation of parents to pay for their child’s college tuition, a result of the lawsuit brought by discontented teen Rachel Canning against her befuddled parents. The 18-year-old Canning, who moved out of her parents’ house while demanding that they continue to pay her high school tuition (and weekly expenses), has dropped her college tuition suit and moved back home. (Her parents agreed to pay for college if she returned and quit the litigation.) So the courts won’t get to opine on Canning’s parents’ right to tell their daughter to get a job. But the NJ courts aren’t done dealing with parents’ rights…
This week New Jersey became the first US state to allow pregnant women to bar putative fathers of their children (not wed to the mother) from the delivery room while giving birth. Mothers-to-be are also not obligated to tell the fathers they have gone into labor. “It would invade her sphere of privacy and provide unwarranted strain on the mother,” said Passaic County Superior Court Judge Sohail Mohammed. Like the lawyer who paid for Rachel Canning’s legal bills, John Inglesino, Judge Mohammed was also appointed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. When appointed in 2011, Christie had to defend his pick of a Muslim for a state judgeship. As a lawyer, Mohammed represented suspects charged with terrorism after September 11. All were released.
