Slapping Teen and Making Her Pay Cable Bill Isn't Basis to Remove Her from Home, Says Top NJ Court
Slapping a teenage child isn’t admirable. But it also falls short of establishing a basis for removing the girl from her home, even when that home has a broken furnace and part of her earnings are taken to pay the cable bill, the New Jersey Supreme Court says.
In a unanimous 7-0 opinion yesterday, the court found that the state Division of Youth and Family Services exceeded its authority by removing the girl and criticized the agency for not providing help concerning the space heaters with which the family had supplemented the broken furnace, the Newark Star-Ledger reported.
Meanwhile, says Richard Wexler, the executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, scarce resources were wasted.
“There was nothing wrong in this family that some concrete help to pay the heating bill and perhaps a little counseling couldn’t solve,” he tells the newspaper. “All of that time and that money was in effect stolen from some child we may never know who really is in danger and really does need to be taken from his home.”
DYFS declined to comment.
The court’s decision is not expected to make any difference in the current living arrangements of the young woman whose custody was at issue because she is no longer a minor.
