It’s legal to spank your kids in Utah.
The Utah Supreme Court on Wednesday said the controversial punishment can’t be considered child abuse if there’s no evidence of harm, The Salt Lake Tribune reports.
The high court’s ruling reversed a finding by a juvenile court that hitting a child with "any object" was abuse.
The case against Utah was brought by an unnamed couple who spanked their four children with belts and then saw them taken into custody by the Division of Child and Family Services last year.
Utah Supreme Court Justice John Pearce ruled that the juvenile court’s finding would stretch the definition of "abuse" too broadly, because it could be stretched to include pillow fights or playing with a foam swords.
"Had there been evidence of the effects of the spanking … the court may have been able to conclude that the children had been harmed," Pearce wrote.
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