An elementary school boy who is not a native English speaker, and has been diagnosed with a number of emotional disabilities including bipolar disorder, depression, attention deficit disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, allegedly was forcibly restrained by other students, beaten, kicked, and forced to endure derogatory comments, epithets and ethnic slurs. The Legislature has imposed […]
Action Against Social Host Parents For Wrongful Death Of 17-Year-Old Sleepover Guest.
After the parents of a 16-year-old went to bed, a 17-year-old sleepover guest obtained vodka from the parents’ bar and consumed 15 shots. She vomited and passed out. The 16-year-old propped her friend’s head against the toilet, closed the bathroom door and went to bed. The girl was pronounced dead the next day. The decedent’s […]
Daddy Or Donor Of Semen??
Jason and Danielle tried to have a baby both naturally and by means of in vitro fertilization [IVF] but were unsuccessful. The two began to live separately. Two or three years after their first attempt to conceive, Jason gave Danielle a letter in which he wrote that he was not ready to be a father, […]
Mother’s Chutzpah: Dead On Arrival.
In 1985, the father of two children was ordered to pay child support, which he did until the mother of the children, his former wife, disappeared with the children, moved out of state and changed the children’s names. The father did not see the children again for 15 years, almost their entire minority. In 1998, […]
Possessing Child Pornography Could Be Expensive.
As a component of 1994’s Violence Against Women Act [18 U.S.C. § 2259], Congress requires district courts to award restitution for certain federal criminal offenses, including child pornography possession. A man pleaded guilty to possessing between 150 and 300 images of child pornography, which included two that depicted the sexual exploitation of a young girl […]
Parents May Limit Court’s Jurisdiction In Adult Child Support Order, But They Didn’t Limit It Here.
When a couple divorced in 2001, they reached an agreement to equally split the future college expenses for their three minor children. Eleven years later, their daughter began incurring significant expenses, but by then the [former] wife was disabled and had an income of less than $23,000/year; whereas, the [former] husband’s income was over $400,000. […]
I ♥ Boobies Bracelets Not Lewd.
Middle school kids wore bracelets to school that said, “I ♥ boobies (KEEP A BREAST)” as part of a nationally recognized breast cancer awareness campaign. The school district banned the bracelets, relying on Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser (1986) 478 U.S. 675, [106 S.Ct. 3159, 92 L.Ed.2d 549],which held that a school district […]
No Equitable Tolling For Parents That Abduct Children.
When a parent abducts a child and flees to another country, the Hague Convention requires that country to return the child immediately if the parent requests return of the child within one year. In this case, the mother and child disappeared from the United Kingdom in 2008, and the father did not locate them in […]
Press Access To Juvenile Courts.
A blanket order in LASC’s juvenile court provides that all members of the press “shall be allowed access” to dependency hearings unless there is a reasonable likelihood that access will be harmful to the child’s best interests.” The order further provides that no one may be denied access to a courtroom until an objection has been […]
Sad State Of First Amendment Affairs.
In past years, a high school saw violence on Cinco de Mayo when “Mexican students had been walking around with the Mexican flag,” and other students “hung a makeshift American flag on one of the trees on campus.” In 2010, during a break, a group of Mexican students asked the assistant principal “why the Caucasian […]