{"id":14634,"date":"2011-09-06T11:04:16","date_gmt":"2011-09-06T16:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=14634"},"modified":"2011-09-06T20:17:58","modified_gmt":"2011-09-07T01:17:58","slug":"your-children%e2%80%99s-ultimate-weapon-suing-you-for-emotional-distress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/09\/your-children%e2%80%99s-ultimate-weapon-suing-you-for-emotional-distress\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Children\u2019s Ultimate Weapon: Suing You for Emotional Distress?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In what surely must be one of those \u201ctruth is stranger than fiction\u201d stories comes the news<\/a>\u00a0that two siblings, one 20 and one 23, sued their mother for intentional infliction of emotional distress from \u201cbad mothering.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2009, Steven Miner II and his sister Kathryn Miner sued their mother, Kimberly Garrity, for emotional distress due to her alleged bad parenting and requested $50,000 in damages.<\/p>\n

Although the Miner children grew up in Barrington Hills, Illinois, in a $1.5 million home, they apparently felt deprived of a proper mother.\u00a0 Among the listed incidents of their mother\u2019s \u201cbad mothering\u201d included Garrity telling her son, then 7, that she would call the police if he did not buckle his seat belt; calling her daughter at midnight, telling her to return from her homecoming festivities; refusing to take her daughter to a car show; failing to send her son care packages while he was in college; and failing to include money or checks in his birthday cards.\u00a0 One exhibit included a birthday card Garrity sent to her son.\u00a0 On the front of the card was a group cartoon tomatoes, all indistinguishable but for one, which had big, wide eyes.\u00a0 Printed on the inside of the card was the sentiment, \u201cSon I got you this Birthday card because it\u2019s just like you . . . different from all the rest!\u201d\u00a0 Garrity wrote, \u201cHave a great day!\u00a0 Love & Hugs, Mom xoxoxo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shelley Smith, Garrity\u2019s attorney, said in court papers that the complaint was a \u201clitany of childish complaints and ingratitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Illinois appeals court recently tossed the suit.\u00a0 It noted that the children\u2019s allegations \u201care unpleasant and perhaps insensitive, and some would arguably fall outside the realm of \u2018good mothering,\u2019 but they are not so shocking as to form a basis for a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the allegations given from both the Today show website<\/a> and ABC News<\/a>, there is nothing in the pleadings that comes even close to \u201cfall[ing] outside the realm of \u2018good mothering.\u2019\u201d\u00a0Where is it written that a parent must always include money in birthday cards?\u00a0 Or send packages to her child in college?\u00a0 Or deny her child what the child wants but does not need?\u00a0 Many would say what Garrity did was responsible mothering, not \u201coutside the realm of \u2018good mothering\u2019,\u201d and certainly not mothering intended to cause emotional distress.\u00a0 And one must wonder whether \u201cgood mothering\u201d differs from \u201cgood fathering.\u201d Might there be a separate standard for fathers?\u00a0 Why not refer to what Garrity did as simply \u201cparenting\u201d?<\/p>\n

Oh, and the attorney for the children?\u00a0 Their father.\u00a0 He divorced their mother in 1995. Attorney Steven A. Miner claimed he filed the suit only after\u00a0 researching it and says he tried to try to talk the children out of filing suit.\u00a0 ABC News<\/a> quotes Bruce Ottley, a law professor at DePaul University and author\u00a0 of Illinois Tort Law, \u201cThis is just me surmising, but this looks more like the husband trying to get back at his wife.\u201d\u00a0Professor Ottley, you\u2019re not the only one who drew that conclusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In what surely must be one of those \u201ctruth is stranger than fiction\u201d stories comes the news\u00a0that two siblings, one 20 and one 23, sued their mother for intentional infliction of emotional distress from \u201cbad mothering.\u201d In 2009, Steven Miner II and his sister Kathryn Miner sued their mother, Kimberly Garrity, for emotional distress due […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,122,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-law","category-public","category-tort-law","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}