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U.S. courts grapple with constitutional claims for loss of adult children.

Article Excerpt
Shortly after midnight on October 1, 1988, two Philadelphia police officers noticed a car parked in the middle of the road, its engine running. They found 19-year-old Donta Dawson in the driver's seat, apparently unconscious and unhurt, and he did not respond to their questions or get out of the car when asked. Finally, one officer reached into the car and saw the young man's arm move; the officer, convinced that he had seen a gun, killed Donta with a shot to the bead. Later, the officers discovered that Donta was unarmed.

The courts found that the shooting officer had acted reasonably and dismissed three criminal charges against him. Donta's mother, Cynthia, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city and several police officers. She sought damages for violations of Donta's civil rights, wrongful death, and for violations of her own civil rights by depriving her of her right to Donta's companionship. The city settled with Cynthia in what the Philadelphia City Paper called "one of the largest ever--and one of the fastest" city settlements. Since she released the defendants from all claims in the settlement agreement, Cynthia's claim that her civil rights had been violated was not considered.

But a few months later Donta's father, Bobby McCurdy, filed his own suit, claiming that the police officer's actions had denied him, too, a constitutionally protected right to his relationship with his son. McCurdy filed under [section] 1983 of the Civil Rights Act. (McCurdy v. Dodd, 352 F.3d 820 (3d Cir. 2003).)

His suit brought to the forefront a question that has bedeviled courts across the country: Is a parent's right...

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