When does child discipline cross the line between punishment and domestic violence? It is a frequent child custody issue which can impact parental rights and timesharing. After a Colorado ski vacation, two parents found out how Florida courts look at punishing your teenager for marijuana, theft, and ingratitude.

Rocky Mountain High

The two Florida parents divorced in 2018. About four years after their divorce, a domestic violence injunction was filed by the mother against the father on behalf of their fourteen-year-old daughter. The Mother alleged in her petition that the father had punched the daughter; grabbed her by the hair, and then sat on his daughter. Worse, while sitting on top of her, the father continued to punch and slap his daughter.

At the trial, the Father testified that he and his daughter had just returned from a Colorado ski vacation during the winter holidays. When they returned, his daughter had given him a pair of socks as a gift. Either very suspicious, or just unhappy with his gift, the father suspected the gift socks were stolen.

The father searched the daughter’s room to see if there were other stolen items. In her backpack from the ski trip to Colorado, the father found marijuana, a pipe, and a vape pen. Colorado, remember, became the first state in the U.S. to sell legal recreational marijuana for adult use. The father announced he was going to punish the daughter for stealing, lying, and possessing marijuana and a vape pen by taking away her most cherished item, her phone.

The daughter refused to give the father her phone, obviously, and they ended up tussling over it. At some point, the daughter snapped the father’s finger back and broke it.

The father refused to return her phone, and the daughter threw a metal thermos and an orange juice bottle. Father denied punching her, pulling her hair, or sitting on her. The daughter told the neighbor she had gotten into an argument with her father but did not need the neighbor to call the police.

The daughter then went back to the father’s house. The neighbor testified the daughter did not seem fearful to return to her father’s house. She then came back to the neighbor’s house and asked for a ride to the mother’s house. During the car ride, the neighbor did not see any physical injuries on the daughter

The mother testified she saw a bruise on the daughter’s back, leg, and arm. The mother took pictures of the bruises. A Child Protection Investigator testified there were “no indicators of mental or physical injury because the parties were deemed as mutual combatants.” The CPI observed “a little black and blue” on the daughter’s shoulder and arm but no bruising or marks. The guardian ad litem for the child also testified, and said it was a mutual combatant situation, and “absolutely 100 percent inappropriate.”

The trial court found there was competent substantial evidence that the daughter is in fear, and granted the injunction for six months. Father appealed.

Punishment in Florida

I’ve written about spanking and custody before. In Florida, parents have a right to discipline their child in a reasonable manner. Florida has strong laws for the protection against domestic violence. Domestic violence includes any assault, battery or any other offense resulting in physical injury of a family member by another family member.

However, parents have to discipline their children, and as the good book says:

“Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.”

A parent’s right to administer reasonable corporal punishment to discipline a child is not a crime when it does not result in harm to the child. Harm, by the way, does not mean just bruises or welts. Harm also means that the discipline is likely to result in physical injury, mental injury, or emotional injury. Even if you don’t physically harm a child, your actions could be criminal.

Florida’s parental privilege to use corporal discipline does not give absolute immunity either. Your run-of-the-mill spanking may be protected from charges of child abuse, but sitting on your child, punching her on the floor and pulling her hair is not. While there are some limited privileges for discipline, there are major risks to your custody case, your domestic violence case, and most importantly, to your children.

The High Court

The argument by the father on appeal was that the altercation between he and his cellphone addicted teenage daughter was nothing more than the father exercising his right to discipline his child. He argued his actions were appropriate physical discipline, rather than an assault, battery, aggravated assault, or aggravated battery.

There was also no history of domestic violence by the father toward the daughter or evidence that would give her a reason to believe she was about to be subjected to domestic violence. The injunction was based solely on the one post-Colorado ski trip incident between a father and his teenage daughter in which he physically wrenched the cellphone from her.

The 4th DCA reversed. The father’s physical and verbal actions in taking away the daughter’s cell phone was a form of physical discipline, not corporal punishment. The appellate court ruled that even if it was punishment, it was not excessive corporal punishment because the daughter refused to surrender her phone, and there was no evidence of disfigurement or significant bruising on the child.

The opinion is available here.