Another special snowflake melted over the weekend, all thanks to the harsh and unforgiving light of reality.
Caitlyn Ricci, now a 23-year-old college grad from New Jersey, became emancipated from her parents back in 2013 after having moved in with her grandparents. A year later, Ricci then sued her estranged parents in 2014 for $16,000 worth of college tuition while she attended Temple University, where she'd enrolled and attended without discussing it with her mom or dad.
She hadn’t talked to her folks in two years, but that didn’t stop her from taking them to court and trying to legally force them to cough up a pile of dough for her expensive, completely voluntary out-of-state school fees.
And apparently, a judge agreed. From ABC6 at the time:
A judge, turning to a New Jersey legal precedent known as 'Newburgh' that says divorced parents may be required to contribute to their children's education, no matter their age.
The judge ruled in Caitlyn's case her parents have to pay $16,000 this year.
"The law in New Jersey is so clear. It is cut and dry. The law says parents are supposed to contribute to their children's post-secondary expenses," said Rochester.
Ricci’s parents told reporters they'd been willing to pay for their daughter to go to an in-state school, provided she lived at home and followed their rules. What’s more, Ricci’s grandparents – her fathers parents – allegedly paid for Ricci’s lawyers.
But it looks like this self-entitled snowflake’s parents have the last laugh in this charade, as a New Jersey appeals court just reversed the 2014 decision and stuck Ricci with the bill for her own big-girl life choices.
“A parent cannot be viewed as a wallet and deprived of involvement of college decision making process,” the court wrote before kicking the case back down to a lower court.
“A parent cannot be viewed as a wallet.”
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of this entire debacle is that it took an appeals court to figure this out.