Rachel Canning, 18, has failed in the first round of her bid to sue her parents for a plethora of alleged abuses. The cheerleader left the family home in October, moving in with a friend in a nearby town before filing the lawsuit against Sean and Elizabeth Canning.
In court documents, Rachel alleges that she was kicked out, forced to leave because her mum drove her to bulimia by calling her ‘porky’ and ‘fat’, and that her ex-policeman father was ‘inappropriately affectionate’ and forced her to binge drink with him.
‘I have been subjected to severe verbal and physical abuse by my mother and father.’ Rachel wrote in her court certification. ‘I am not willingly and voluntarily leaving a reasonable situation at home to make my own decisions. I had to leave to end the abuse.’
She is now suing her parents so that they pay her $650 (£388) in child support or pay her tuition fees at the exclusive Morris Catholic High School in New Jersey. But that's only her side of the story. Her parents’ lawyers insist that Rachel left the house of her own accord and it’s come out in court that Rachel sent her mum a text saying ‘I wanna s*** all over your face.’, which doesn’t entirely work in her favour.
‘We're being sued by our child. I'm dumbfounded. So is my wife. So are my other daughters,' Sean Canning told a CNN affiliateafter breaking down in tears in the courtroom.
Luckily for Sean and Elizabeth, Judge Bogaard who is presiding over the case ruled against the student, saying that she is ‘spoilt’. He also didn’t want to set a precedent where disgruntled teens could sue their parents for, say, giving them an 11pm curfew or making them do chores. As the judge put it: ‘Do we want to establish a precedent where parents live in basic fear of establishing rules of the house?’
However, it’s not all over yet. There’s another hearing scheduled for next month, where we’ll be sure to see more salacious allegations - and even more photos of Rachel rolling her eyes in court.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.