Will New Parental Liabilities Extend to Online Behavior?

Source: Sergey Zolkin / Unsplash

This spring marked a new era regarding how legal exposure can extend to parents of children with serious mental illness and a capacity for violence. In March, two separate juries found the parents of Oxford school shooter Ethan Crumbley guilty of manslaughter, with a judge sentencing them to at least 10 years in prison in April. To be clear, the majority of individuals with serious mental illness are not violent; quite the contrary.

As discussed in a previous post, this ruling should serve as a wake-up call for gun owners with children, prompting them to think more seriously about the responsibility they might one day have to take for the potential actions of dependents experiencing serious crises or emotional distress. That said, parents who are not gun owners also have reason to reflect on this development and consider how to best protect their children, families, communities and themselves.

While approximately 44% of U.S. adults report that they live in a household with a gun, more than 90% have access to the Internet—another potentially dangerous vehicle for those in the throes of mental health crises. With the power of digitally connected devices, such struggling individuals have been known to harass, defame and even threaten people online, acting in response to manic episodes, paranoid delusions and other psychoses, for example.

As a mental health attorney who counsels families of loved ones with mental health issues and substance use disorders, I hear directly from my clients about the prevalence of this dangerous online behavior. But too often, there isn’t a clear understanding of the very serious associated civil and criminal liabilities. These can be legally appropriate given the harm such online activity can cause, with damaging posts and images often circulating in perpetuity.

It is not a great leap to believe that our justice system might soon hold parents responsible for damaging online behaviors of children with clear, ongoing mental health issues following the court’s decision to hold the Crumbleys accountable for the real-world actions of their son.

Of course, it is a challenging task for any parent or guardian to confiscate a teenage or adult child’s device. Oftentimes, such “punishment” isn’t even the answer. Instead, family members should focus on addressing the underlying symptoms when, in fact, a serious mental health issue might be contributing to dangerous online activity. This includes seeking treatment, adjusting medications and staging interventions, as necessary. Serious cases might require hospitalization and the use of legal tools like mental health warrants, as well as counsel from attorneys who specialize in matters like defamation and harmful online speech. It is critical for families to be able to identify “red flag” behaviors, taking proactive measures to prevent a tragedy.

As an additional step, it may be appropriate—under certain scenarios—for parents to limit their children’s online activity by deactivating devices, changing WiFi passwords, removing them from Internet plans, etc. Such boundaries can set clear behavioral expectations, reinforcing positive change. Moving forward, parents and guardians can create roadmaps to help their children “earn back” their Internet privileges, with the potential for monitoring, which is increasingly considered a necessary parental practice for all children, regardless of whether or not they have a mental health issue and/or related issues.

Family members of children with serious mental illness already face innumerous complex challenges. Unfortunately, their legal exposure to the online actions of their children represents another potential issue, which—hopefully—can be managed with appropriate, proactive measures.