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Temple student and parents she sued for tuition will be 'a happy family again,' her father says

A judge previously said he had “never seen a family torn apart the way this family is torn apart.” Caitlyn Ricci and her parents are now reconciling.

The saga of a former Temple University student who sued her parents to force them to pay tuition — causing an ugly New Jersey court battle in which a judge said he had "never seen a family torn apart the way this family is torn apart" — has ended, according to her father.

The two sides have agreed to drop the case, Michael Ricci, 46, said, following an appellate court ruling Friday that said Caitlyn Ricci's parents do not have to pay her tuition. A lower court had originally ruled in favor of Caitlyn Ricci, 23.

Michael Ricci said Tuesday he and his ex-wife, Maura McGarvey, have reconciled with Caitlyn, and are working on repairing their relationship with her.

"It's going to take some time to heal," Ricci, of Haddon Heights, said. "It's going to take some time for us to work on this. But nothing can break the bond between parents and their kids, so we'll get through it. We'll move on, and we'll be a happy family again."

In October 2014, a Superior Court judge in Camden ruled that Caitlyn Ricci's divorced parents had to pay $16,000 of their daughter's tuition at Temple. They refused, arguing that she failed to apply for all available financial aid and that she never told them she was planning to attend the university.

The parents said they did, however, pay $906 of their daughter's tuition for Rowan College at Gloucester County, which a judge also ordered them to pay after a two-hour hearing in which Caitlyn's mother tearfully told the court, "I love that child more than anything, but she only wants the money."

Caitlyn Ricci sued her parents several months after leaving her mother's Washington Township home in February 2013. Her parents said that she had been kicked out of "Disney college" — an internship program associated with Walt Disney World in Florida — after she was caught drinking underage, and that she refused to do chores at home. Caitlyn Ricci said she left after a dispute about taking a summer class.

She moved into the Cherry Hill home of her paternal grandparents, who have a long-standing rift with their son. Michael Ricci has accused them of steering her actions. His father, Matthew Ricci, declined to comment Tuesday.

The state appellate court Friday, in reversing the lower court's decision that had required the parents to pay tuition, said, "An independent child choosing her own path is not entitled to support, because support is due only to a child who is not emancipated."

The appellate court encouraged Caitlyn Ricci and her parents to settle the issue outside of litigation, saying "the chasm between parents and child surely will widen" otherwise.

Kelli Martone, who represented Caitlyn's mother, said Tuesday in a statement that the Ricci family is "closing this matter for good."

Michael Ricci said Caitlyn, who did not return a call Tuesday, is now living on her own in South Jersey and taking classes at Rowan.

He said Caitlyn is paying back a loan for her Temple education. The dispute, he said, has been "put to bed."

"It's over, it's done with," he said. "And, hopefully, other divorced parents don't have to go through something like this with their child."