Grandparents Rights Lawyer San Diego

San Diego Grandparents Rights Lawyers

Our San Diego Family Law Attorneys will go to court room battle for San Diego grandparents wanting visitation with, or custody of, grand kids.

The status of grandparents’ rights is dodgy in some states. Within the present laws, in case a couple’s adult daughter dies, those grandparents could possibly be declined visitation with their grandchild because of the kid’s father.

Even if they had just what most of the people might consider a classic grandparent-grandchild relationship and, let’s say, visited their own grandchild every Sunday afternoon.

But in the view of some states, until grandparents have functioned as de facto parents, meaning they lived with their grandchildren or took proper care of them while the parents were at the job, they are treated no differently than strangers.

San Diego Grandparents Rights Attorney

Families fall apart for any variety of causes: divorce, the death of a parent, substance abuse, incarceration.

Grandparents in San Diego and all over the U.S. really have legal rights and might get visitation rights with grand kids, however those rights differ from state to state.

Understanding your basic legal rights can certainly help make sure that your relationship with the grandchildren isn’t going to end should that with their parents.

After all, each and every case calls for a particular
set of facts and grandparents who find themselves unexpectedly cut off from grand kids need to consult an attorney to go over the course of action their specific situations require.

When Grandparents’ Rights Changed

In June 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court released a 6-3 decision on grandparents’ visitation rights in the Troxel v. Granville case.

This canceled out a Washington State law that authorized judges to grant visitation rights to any interested party as long as the visits were in the best interest of the child, even if the parents objected.

The Troxel v. Granville decision was unclear because while most of the justices have agreed that Troxel has to be decided a particular way, each one had a completely different grounds for doing so which resulted in six written opinions.

This makes it hard for state courts to interpret the decision. Despite this and the narrow set of facts in which the case dealt, Troxel v. Granville has turned out to be the grounds for all subsequent discussion of grandparents’ rights.

Parent Vs. Grandparent: Whose Call Will It Be?

The case dates back to 1993, when Brad Troxel committed suicide in Washington State. Brad left behind two daughters and their mother, Tommie Granville, whom he had never married.

Brad and Tommie were estranged at the time of his dying, yet Brad’s parents, Gary and Jenifer, continued seeing their grandchildren after the suicide.

When Tommie remarried and her new husband adopted the daughters she’d had with Brad, Tommie restricted the grandparents’ visits.

The Troxels desired a lot more time with their grand kids and decided to go to court for it, stating Washington State’s third-party visitation law, which said they had the legal right to visit as long as it was in the best interest of the children. The trial judge agreed.

The Supreme Court, however, did not and found the Washington State law to be “breathtakingly broad,” arguing that it infringed with parental legal rights.

It struck down the Washington Supreme Court’s determination, which in fact had provided the Troxel grandparents rights to more visitation.

While groups such as AARP filed court papers in favor of grandparents’ legal rights, the parents’ rights groups acclaimed the Supreme Court decision in favor of Tommie Granville a success.

Groups including the Coalition for the Restoration of Parental Rights along with the American Civil Liberties Union lauded the decision which gave “fit” parents the final say concerning how to raise their children, this includes whether or not grandparents could see them.

Laws Differ State by State

At most basic level, all states need grandparents to demonstrate that the visits they request will be in the best interest of the grandchild.

This generally means that grandparents should show that their visits won’t be harmful by any means, and that they aren’t abusive or otherwise harmful to the child.

More than this initial challenge, each and every state has a distinct threshold for when it will enable grandparents to take a case to court.

A number of states will be more permissive when it comes to filing for visitation.

Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland and New York require only the ground rule above mentioned, that visitation is in the best interest of the child, before grandparents can take a case to court.

Different states set more stringent requirements, making it possible for grandparents to file a lawsuit only if they were denied visitation entirely.

Under recent laws in Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Mississippi, Oregon, Rhode Island and Utah, grandparents don’t have a case if parents permit them to to see their grandchildren, no matter how seldom.

In Minnesota and Pennsylvania, grandparents can’t make a legal case unless their grand kids formerly resided with them. Outside of the U.S., grandparents may very well be astonished to find out how limited grandparents’ rights are in the U.K.

Burden of Proof

The most restrictive states, such as Florida, Minnesota and Pennsylvania, demand proof that grandparents have a parent-child relationship with their grandchild, which means they already have frequently stood in for the child’s parents.

Depending on the state, these requirements could be overwhelming.

Grandparents may have to demonstrate they had taken proper care of the child full-time while parents were away for longer amounts of time or that they participated in typical parental duties for instance taking the child to doctor visits or even participating in PTA meetings.

The law is beginning to change in response to Troxel, on a state by state basis. The Ohio Supreme Court released a 2005 decision finding that Troxel does not affect Ohio’s laws on visitation rights.

In Harrold v. Collier, Ohio’s court differed from Troxel when it determined that grandparents may visit the kids of their departed daughter, contrary to the wishes of the children’s father.

In contrast, new cases in the Texas Supreme Court have maintained the state’s grandparents’ visitation rights laws in accordance with Troxel.

In 2005, the Texas state legislature changed its older laws on grandparents’ legal rights, stiffening the conditions by making it possible for grandparents access over a parent’s objection only if denial of access would “significantly impair the child’s physical health or emotional well-being.”

Unless there exists a consistent guidance on a country wide level, say Kent, state laws continue to vary in ways that potentially damage grandparents’ legal rights.

Who’s Guarding the San Diego Grandparents Legal rights?

On a national level, Senators Hillary Clinton (D) of New York and Olympia Snow (R) of Maine presented a bipartisan bill in March 2007 that might help grandparents and other relatives taking over primary caretaker obligations for children.

The Kinship Caregiver Support Act doesn’t address custody or visitation issues specifically, but does give support for the more than 6 million children in the United States living in homes headed by grandparents or any other relatives by expanding access to federal assistance programs for schooling, medical treatment and legal services.

The bill, backed up by AARP and grandparents, lobbying groups such as Generations United and Grandparents for Children’s Rights, remains in the initial stages of the legislative process and can undergo various revisions before heading to a vote in the whole Congress.

On a grassroots level, there is increasing support for grandparents experiencing visitation or custodial difficulties with their grand kids.

AARP gives a few informational resources on a national level, as also does Grandparents Rights Organization, a Michigan-based nonprofit organization.

Furthermore, local organizations such as California-based Grandparents as Parents, present support programs to lend a caring hand to grandparents handling the process of trying to get visitation and custodial rights within their state.