Appellate Court Vacates Order Aimed at Stopping Child from Calling Stepfather “Dad”
From Rogowski v. Kirven, decided last week by the Pennsylvania Superior Court, in an opinion by Judge Judith Ference Olson, joined by Judges Mary Jane Bowes and Mary P. Murray:
[T]he trial court … placed the following restriction on the Child’s speech:
The parties shall not encourage the Child to refer to anyone other than the parties as Mother, Mom, Father, Dad, [et cetera.] In the event the Child refers to a party’s spouse or significant other in such a way, that party shall correct the Child.
… [W]e find this restriction to be a content-based restriction because the purpose of the restriction was to limit the message that the Child conveyed through use of the terms “Mom” or “Dad” to denote a biological, familial relationship with the person rather than a non-biological, familial relationship as exists in the case of a step-parent. Therefore, this restriction is subject to the strict scrutiny standard.
The trial court discussed the need to impose a restriction on the Child’s speech within the context of its “best interest of the child” analysis as follows:
Father testified that the Child is calling Stepfather “Dad” or “Daddy,” a term that applied only to Father during the Child’s first five years of life—years during which Father testified he was the Child’s “stay-at-home Dad.”
Mother testified that it is “unreasonable” to expect the Child, at age 8, to call Stepfather by a name different from [w]hat her two younger half-siblings will use in the future. She said tha
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