Rachel
Canning, a cheerleader and lacrosse player at Morris Catholic High
School who has aspirations to be a biomedical engineer, filed a lawsuit
last week in the Family Part of state Superior Court in Morristown that
seeks a judge's declaration that she is non-emancipated and dependent as a
student on her parents for support.
An honor student and athlete who claims her parents threw her out of
their home when she turned 18 has taken the highly unusual step of suing
them for immediate financial support and to force them to pay for her college education.
Judge Peter Bogaard, sitting
in Morristown, has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday. Rachel Canning's
lawyer, Tanya N. Helfand, will ask that parents Sean and Elizabeth
Canning, who haven't paid an outstanding $5,306 Morris Catholic tuition
bill, be ordered to settle that debt, pay Rachel's current living and
transportation expenses, and commit an existing college fund to their
daughter, who has received acceptance letters from several universities
and has to make a decision this spring.
Since the alleged
"abandonment" by her parents, Rachel has been living in Rockaway
Township with the family of her best friend and fellow student Jaime
Inglesino, whose father is attorney and former Morris County Freeholder
John Inglesino. Inglesino is funding the lawsuit and hired attorney
Helfand, who included in the lawsuit a request that the parents pay
their daughter's legal fees that so far total $12,597.
Sean
Canning, a retired Lincoln Park police chief who currently works as
Mount Olive's township administrator, said his daughter's representation
of the facts is not accurate and he fears she is being "enabled" by
well-intentioned but ill-informed people who include the Inglesinos.
Sean Canning said that Rachel voluntarily left home in October and was
never thrown out.
"We love our child and miss her. This is
terrible. It's killing me and my wife. We have a child we want home.
We're not Draconian and now we're getting hauled into court. She's
demanding that we pay her bills but she doesn't want to live at home and
she's saying, 'I don't want to live under your rules,'" Sean Canning
said.
