12-Year-Old Girl Sues Father For Grounding Her & Wins

A father who was taken to court by his 12-year-old daughter in Quebec after he grounded her has lost his appeal.

Quebec Superior Court rejected the father's appeal of a lower court ruling that said his punishment was too severe for the wrongs he said his daughter committed.

The father is "flabbergasted," says his lawyer Kim Beaudoin.

In its ruling, the province declares the girl was caught up in a "very rare" set of circumstances, and her father didn't have sufficient grounds to contest the court's earlier decision.

She had been living with her father after her parents split up when he grounded her in 2008 for defying his order to stay off the internet. The father caught her chatting on websites he had blocked, and said his daughter was posting "inappropriate pictures" of herself online.

Her punishment: she was banned from her Grade 6 graduation trip to Quebec City in June 2008, for which her mother had already granted permission.

The father � who had custody � withheld his written permission for the trip, prompting the school to refuse to let the girl go with her classmates.

That's when the girl asked for help from the lawyer who represented her in her parents' separation, and petitioned the court to intervene in her case.

"Going to court was a last resort," said Lucie Fortin, a legal aid attorney who represented the girl. "The question was that there was a problem between the father and the mother, and the child asked the court to intervene because it was important to her. The trip was very important to her."

A lower court ruled in the girl's favour at the time and she went on the trip, but her father appealed the decision on the principle of the matter.

"Either way, he doesn't have authority over this child anymore. She sued him because she doesn't respect his rules," says Beaudoin. "It's very hard to raise a child who is the boss. We went from a child who wanted to live with her father, and after all this has been done, they're not speaking anymore."

"Is this what we want in our society? Laws are supposed to reflect our values. And if the courts aren't reflecting that, maybe the government will, to prevent children from going this way," she said, adding that the father may want to take the case to Canada's Supreme Court.

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