Kidz & the Law

Written by Charlie Durgin

Kids can be a lot of fun. Ask any parent! Especially when they take your hard-earned trust and toss it in the garbage in one fell moment. Or, they simply submit to the unchecked yearnings of youth.

Let’s take a look at a few situations that pop up more than you would think, according to an informal poll of Bakersfield residents, who have children that are by all accounts charming, accomplished, and motivated.

But at the end of the day, they are kids.

Say, for instance, that you have two beautiful boys. We’ll call them Robbie and Ryan. Robbie is 17 and Ryan is 15. They are good boys with many friends, and they are active in school life. You don’t give it a second thought when your friends ask you to share a cabin in Big Bear for the weekend. Robbie is old enough to look after Ryan after all, and what trouble could they really get into?

Plenty it turns out.

Robbie and Ryan invite “just a few friends” over to enjoy the comforts of your nearly paid-off 2,400-square-foot home. Just to swim in the pool for a few hours and watch a movie, right? One of the boys brings a bottle of his father’s scotch, girls are text messaged about the parent-free zone and libations, and the next thing you know, 25 adolescents in a completely unsupervised house—your completely unsupervised house—are having a party.

Unfortunately, that Bose surround sound system you had installed in the den is currently pumping the latest Lil’ Wayne track at 11. The windows are vibrating, teenaged girls are frolicking in various states of swimwear, emitting scotch soaked giggles, and the old man two houses down wasn’t feeling well anyway and has called the police to complain about the noise.

They arrive to find two of the boys’ friends thoroughly invested in a wrestling match turned fist fight, and one has a small cut under his eye. A half-smoked marijuana cigarette resting on top of an empty beer can on the table next to your hammock finishes the picture and the police are not amused.

The so-called “Cool Parent” ordinance will have you in enough hot water in a criminal sense as it is.

On May 23, 2006 Supervisor Michael Rubio announced that the Kern County Board of Supervisors passed a “Cool Parent” Ordinance that imposes a fine of up to $1,000 dollars for parents who host an underage drinking party. But that isn’t even the half of it.

“To leave your child without adult supervision is to invite liability,” said Elizabeth Gong, Division Director for Juvenile Services at Kern County Juvenile Probation.

Local lawyer Greg Muir of the firm Young Wooldridge agrees, especially if you know your kids.

“When I, as parent, head up to Tahoe, the question is whether I have some reason to believe, based on prior experience, something said, or other information, to give me cause to believe that it’s going to be wild party time in my absence. If so, I need to take reasonable steps to prevent that from happening.”

In summary, it pays to spend time with your kid and really get to know them. Today’s game of catch and meaningful talk could be the difference between spending the week in Mammoth and spending the week in court when they hit their teenage years.

“In the real world, the child’s negligence is going to fall under the parent’s homeowner’s coverage, if there is any available. But, understand, the liability flows from the child’s negligence, not the adult’s. If the parent stayed home and was at the party, then it comes back to parent, directly, as negligent parental supervision.”

Your homeowner’s insurance should cover most of it, but what about damaged relationships, or the financial knocks you’ll take when you have to hire legal counsel to represent you or the premiums on your insurance go up?

In the ‘80s movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, a mischievous Ferris coerces his weak-willed friend Cameron into taking out his father’s very rare 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California on a trip into downtown Chicago. Cameron warns Ferris that his father knows the mileage and “doesn’t drive it. Just wipes it with a diaper.” Ferris’ will wins out, and the car is taken into Chicago with the ragtop down and left in the hands of a sketchy parking lot attendant who drove the hell out of it while the kids traipsed around the city having moments of clarity about themselves.

When Cameron discovers the damages and additional mileage, he cracks and they resort to desperate measures to undo the mileage from the odometer resulting in the car being damaged beyond repair. The film ends with us not knowing the outcome. Until now.

“The interesting argument here is whether Ferris is actually “operating” the car. No one is in it, but he started the engine, and accelerated the vehicle in place. That’s for another day, though. In this situation, Ferris doesn’t actually steal the car, but uses a little peer pressure and just talks his friend into taking the car, and we have the negligent minor situation. If he doesn’t have actual authority to use to the car, he might be guilty of ‘conversion’ of the car to his use, and you could argue the willful act theory.”

In other words, Cameron’s father’s lawyer would have to prove that Ferris knew there was a good chance rigging the car in such a fashion would result in disaster. That Ferris should’ve known better than to prop an ultra-valuable car on blocks and running in reverse at a high RPM.

Gong feels that there’s something to Ferris’ overall world view.

“Ferris feels this sense of entitlement like many of today’s youth do. Which is, ‘I won’t get caught, it won’t happen to me.’ ”

If you aren’t willing to speak softly and carry a big stick, it might be wise to let law enforcement drive the point home for you.

Bakersfield resident Danny White* has always been close to his children, a 10-year-old son and a 14-year-old daughter. He participates in their after-school sports programs and even plays video games with them when homework is done.

When one of his daughter’s friends starting experimenting with drugs, he didn’t chase him away. He thought it would be better if he had a safe place to go where drugs weren’t a factor. All was well until the boy came to the house one day and stole a video game system and an iPod.

“It took me by surprise because there was a trust there,” White said. “I didn’t think he was going to take advantage of knowing our work schedules to steal that stuff.”

White continued to show great patience by calling the boy’s father instead of the police. The boy’s father promised to pay for the XBOX and iPod Nano at the end of the week. He also said that he worked close to law enforcement and would pursue the missing goods with those connections.

Undaunted by the lack of parental action, the boy came back the next day and stole the rest of the video games and more electronics, pushing his two day haul to over $1,000.

“When I called the boy’s father a second time, he felt like I was trying to scam him, or get the rest of my Christmas list filled out.”

White now finds himself in a position of being reticent to call authorities since his own efforts failed, and not getting his kids’ stuff back.

“He went out on a limb and was taken advantage of. He needs to file a report with law enforcement,” Gong said. “It’s better to do it as soon as possible so the officers can gather enough fresh information to make a case. It’s not too late to call the police after a gentleman’s agreement falls through.”

It will also support any efforts you have to recover your possessions, or receive compensation for them.

“The theft of the electronic equipment is certainly a willful act, and the parent will be responsible for up to $25,000. Hopefully, it won’t be that expensive, and you can have your son pay you back when he gets out of juvenile hall, or make him mow your lawn for the rest of your life,” Muir said.

Even past the stigma of being a snitch, or not handling internal problems internally, it’s important for the wayward youth to realize that it can cost parents dearly.

“We got into a situation where kids were starting to do horrendous damage to abandoned houses,” Gong explains. “Tearing up plumbing fixtures, removing toilets, and leaving the water on. Very quickly this ‘prank’ can turn into $200,000 in damages. Now it’s written in the law, the parent is responsible for financial damages. The parent’s name is right next to the minor’s name on the paperwork. Anything against the minor is an enforceable civil judgment against the parent.”

Modern day problems often merit old-timey solutions. Especially in the business of child rearing. If you let the iPod and XBOX raise your children, you shouldn’t be surprised when they grow up with a values system that lines up more closely with the doctrines of T-Pain or Kid Rock than your own. You also shouldn’t be surprised when they treat everything like a consequence-free game, since they spend more time playing them than shooting hoops with you.

And you thought college was expensive?

It might be cheaper to teach them this rule that my dad taught me right before he plucked a fresh switch off the hickory tree: “Charlie if you have any doubts, then there is no doubt. Don’t do it.” And then he would dispense some old fashioned wisdom that didn’t involve lawyers and made me sit lightly as I thought about jumping off the roof into my cousin’s pool. There was no doubt. It was stupid.