Parents Beware

Your child may want to sue you

Ever alert for new fields to plow, negligence lawyers have slapped malpractice suits on doctors, hospitals, even fellow lawyers. But they have long left virtually unfilled what could, theoretically, prove the most fertile field of all--malpractice suits by children against their own parents. Now one Tom Hansen, 24, of Boulder, Colo., is bringing what may be called a "serpent's tooth suit"* against his mother and father.

Institutionalized twice for mental care since he was 17, Hansen is demanding $250,000 in compensatory damages and $100,000 in punitive damages because, he claims, his parents neglected his needs for "food, clothing, shelter and psychological support." He also alleges that his parents, both scientists employed at Boulder's National Center for Atmospheric Research, not only tried "to channel me in the direction they wanted me to go" but also "spent nothing for what I wanted, nothing on music or art."

Courts have long limited the right of children to sue their parents because such suits would sow discord in the family. But nearly a score of states, including California, Illinois and New York, have chipped away at the "intrafamily tort immunity" rule, largely to allow children to sue parents in auto accident cases. A child who has reached majority may sue his parents for a wrong that may have occurred during his minority, and in such cases the statute of limitations does not start to run until majority is reached. Suits on such vague grounds as Hansen's. however, are unusual: his lawyer describes the case as "a suit for the malpractice of parenting."

So how are parents to keep the kids from dragging them into court on similarly vague grounds? Henry Foster, professor emeritus at New York University Law School, offers cold comfort to mothers and fathers: "It used to be that the King, parent, hospital and so forth could do no wrong. This is changing."

-"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child."--King Lear

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