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Parental Liability - The Basics

1) What do they mean by “parents”?  What if my kid doesn’t live with me?

A typical law in one state singles out “parents who have parental rights and responsibilities for the  child and are [his]residential parents and legal custodians .”  Looks like the custodial parent is spotlighted here.

2)  How can a law hold me responsible for something I had nothing to do with?

Welcome to the land of “vicarious responsibility.”  This makes you responsible for an act you may not have committed because of your relationship with the person who DID commit it.  In this case, your position as parent makes you responsible for certain dumb, antisocial acts of your offspring.

3)  Don’t you have to be neglectful or abusive or something to be hit with the tab for your kid’s irresponsibility?

No.  Unfortunately, it’s not how good you are at your job or the rules you’ve set down that count, it’s the damage your child inflicts on someone else.  Your responsibility comes from the parent-child relationship and the expectation that you have control over your child and are the first line of defense against societal meltdown.

4)  What types of acts does the law cover ? 

The laws vary from state to state, but many cover such things as vandalism to government or school property (including every child’s fantasy, spray-painting his own school).  Defacement or destruction of national and state flags, cemetery headstones, public monuments/historical markers. Also, property destroyed in “hate crimes,” based on race or religion, such as ransacking  a synogogue.  Personal injury in connection with any of these may also be included. 

5) I still don’t understand how they can charge me with something when I didn’t destroy a thing.  Where’s the logic?

Blame that quaint assumption: that you, the parent, can exercise reasonable control over your child and provide him/her with age-appropriate supervision.  The state will sanction both you and your child when that laser pointer or spray-paint can shows that no one’s minding the store.  Personal responsibility is making a comeback, and the parent/child “team” is taking the heat.

6) What on earth is  “joint and several” liability? It sounds like a disease.

It simply means that the $1000 medical bill can be collected from your family’s assets as a whole, your child’s savings bonds, or part from each. Since there are two parties responsible, the victim has a better chance of recovering.

7) How long am I on the hook for my child’s lack of judgment/impulsiveness?

“Vicarious liability” doesn’t kick in until the state feels the child has the ability to decide to do or not to do something.  This is usually around age eight.  From that point on, parents are liable until their child reaches the age of majority (adulthood), usually 18.

8) Is there any point before 18 when I might be safe?

Yes, if your child becomes “emancipated,” which means he or she is considered an adult for purposes of the law.  For example, if your child marries at 16 and moves in with a spouse, or joins the Navy and sails around the world for the next five years, he or she could be considered an “emancipated minor” even though still younger than18.  This process isn’t automatic – a child must be declared “emancipated” by court decree.

9) Give me more examples of situations in which I, the parent, could get one of those phone calls and have to reach for the wallet.

Here’s one: Your 12-year-old, always a car nut, jumps into a Jeep with keys still in the ignition.  Not having yet enrolled in driver’s ed, he loses control, veers off the road and slams into someone's house. You’re sued by both the Jeep’s owner (which your insurance company may deal with) and the owner of the house.  

10) We know boys will be boys (and girls can be just as nasty – especially on competitive soccer teams.)  What are some situations in which stressed-out parents won’t be subject to financial ruin?

 Parental liability laws zero in on intentional, malicious or reckless behavior.  If something’s truly an accident or was unforeseeable, the law normally won’t apply.  

For example, your daughter, trading Pokemon cards during school recess, swipes Charmander from a friend, and playfully runs away with it.  As she rounds a corner, she smacks head-first into Karen, who was strolling peacefully to the jungle gym.  Karen’s glasses break and she suffers a bloody nose.  Since the damage occurred because of an accident, the statute won’t normally cover it.

Another: Your son, the chocoholic, invites friends over after school.  Ravenous, he grabs a selection of Hershey and Pepperidge Farm goodies,  packed with chocolate chunks, and piles them onto the kitchen table.  A neighbor’s three-year-old son, severely allergic to chocolate, wanders in and nibbles on some forbidden bounty, ending up in the emergency room with hives and  shortness of breath.  Since your son didn’t intentionally poison a neighbor (and the boy’s caretaker might have been more attentive), you might be off the hook.

11) My mind is starting to wander.  Can you give us some final advice other than “hope this never happens to you?” 

 Supervise your kids (no matter how old and cool) and  communicate clear limitations  often.  Any kid responsible under a parental liability law is old enough to grasp the idea. Explain that YOU could be charged with (and made to pay for) something THEY did, which would make you even angrier than a D in algebra.  Provide examples and a simple explanation of why the law blames parents and kids for something that only the child may have done. 

If, despite your best efforts, you find yourself on the receiving end of a personal injury or property damage claim, call your favorite lawyer and withhold your kid’s allowance until he or she is eligible for Social Security.    

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