School event attendance not implied

School event attendance not implied

Thornton & Thornton [2016] FamCA 152 (16 March 2016)

For full case: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FamCA/2016/152.html

As to the issue of the father’s attendance at the girls’ school

40. Whatever Justice Murphy’s final parenting orders can be interpreted as providing for in respect of the father attending at the girls’ school at events and activities that parents of children at that school are otherwise welcome to attend, his Honour’s orders are stayed. The Principal Registrar’s December 2013 orders said nothing about the subject and they only provided for limited, independently supervised time between the children and the father.
41. With respect to the father and those who might have advised him, I do not consider that anything in the Principal Registrar’s orders can be interpreted as entitling the father to attend the children’s school to spend time with or around the children at school events or associated, extra-curricular activities. Similarly, the balance of the orders of the Federal Circuit Court Judge made 21 December 2012, left untouched by the Principal Registrar’s orders, provide no entitlement to the father to attend these events.
42. As I understood was submitted by counsel for the mother, I accept that without express conferral of an entitlement or right to attend at a school based event or associated, extra-curricular activity, contained within a parenting order or parenting plan, that the right of a parent to attend such events or activities at which a subject child is present is confined to the temporal limits of any order expressly providing for the child or children to live with or spend time with that parent.
43. If a parent has the benefit of an order that a child spends time with him or her from Thursday after school until Monday before school, each second weekend, then without an express conferral of a right to attend school events at which the child is present which parents are welcomed by the school to attend outside of that time, then the parent is, in my judgment, limited to only attending such events at which the child is present from Thursday after school until Monday before school.
44. In this case, whilst the orders of Justice Murphy remain stayed, I am of the view that the father’s right to attend at school events and associated extra-curricular activities at which one or both of the children are present is limited to his supervised time each Sunday afternoon and one afternoon during the week. It follows that I am of the view that if the mother’s appeal is dismissed and Justice Murphy’s orders become extant again, that the father’s rights to attend such events and activities are similarly confined to the period within which the orders provide for the children to spend time with him.

45. At the hearing, I was taken to paragraph 15(b) of his Honour’s orders. That provides:

Each party shall do all such things and sign all such documents so as to authorize the other parent to:

…

b. Receive all information from the children’s school or pre-school to which parents are ordinarily entitled as to events to which parents are entitled to attend or participate;

…

46. The ICL took me to that as being all that Murphy J had said about the matter in his orders. Upon reflection, I do not consider that order alone provides sufficient authority, entitlement or right for the father to attend any such events at which the children (or one of them) are present at any time, whether or not the children are spending time with him otherwise pursuant to a parenting order. I am of the view that for him to do so, he must either have the consent of the mother who has the care of the children outside of the time that they spend with the father pursuant to order, or express authority through a parenting order.
47. Counsel for the mother, the ICL and the father all agreed with the proposition that any “confusion” the children might be said to be experiencing around the father’s attendance at school events and activities is easily remedied by the matter being made clear by the Court and the parents each knowing where the matter stands so that the children can be readily informed by each of them as to what the position is.
48. For the same reasons I gave for declining to make a parenting order that increases the children’s time with the children right at this point in the process, I similarly decline to make any order that expressly confers a right or entitlement on the father to attend school events or activities and extra-curricular events at which the children are present outside of the time that the children spend with him pursuant to the extant order of the Principal Registrar. That means, having regard to my view of the issue, that the father should not attend any such events or activities at which the children are present outside of the four hours of supervised time he has on Sunday afternoons and the other period after school during the week. Having stated that view, I do not consider it necessary to make an order restraining him from so attending, as I expect he will continue to show the patience and respect that has stood him so well until now.
49. Of course, having regard to my views about this matter, should the mother’s appeal be unsuccessful and the final orders of Justice Murphy become the extant orders governing parenting of these children, the times and circumstances within which the father can attend school events and activities at which one or both children are present will change. However, if the father wants the right to attend events at which one or both children are present outside of the time the children spend with him pursuant to such order, at least in my view, he will need to seek the consent of the mother or a further order of a court exercising family law jurisdiction.