Title: Koshko v. Haining

State: maryland

Issuer: Maryland Supreme Court

Document:

Glen Koshko, et ux. v. John Haining, et ux., No. 35, Sept. Term 2006.
FAMILY LAW - GRANDPARENTAL VISITATION - STATUTE INTERPRETED TO
CONTAIN REBUTTABLE PRESUMPTION FAVORING PARENTAL DECISION AS IN
CHILD’S BEST INTERESTS
FAMILY LAW - GRANDPARENTAL VISITATION - STATUTE INTERPRETED TO
REQUIRE THRESHOLD FINDING OF PARENTAL UNFITNESS OR EXCEPTIONAL
CIRCUMSTANCES TO PRECEDE BEST INTERESTS INQUIRY
Glen and Andrea Koshko are the custodial parents of three minor children, Kaelyn,
Haley, and Aiden.  The couple met and began dating after then-Andrea Haining moved back
into her parents’, John and Maureen Haining’s, home in Middletown, New Jersey.  Andrea
purportedly had left to escape the acrimonious environment there, but returned from Florida
after her boyfriend abandoned her when she became pregnant.  On 26 September 1994,
Andrea gave birth to Kaelyn, who was raised in her grandparents’ home for the first three
years of her life.  During this time, the Hainings were very involved in Kaelyn’s upbringing.
In September 1997, Andrea and Kaelyn moved out of the Haining residence to live with Glen
in nearby Point Pleasant.  Despite the move, Maureen Haining maintained a close
relationship with Kaelyn and visited her often.  Eventually, Glen and Andrea became
affianced and, contrary to the plans and wishes of the Hainings, eloped in 1998.  In June
1999, the newlywed couple and child moved to Baltimore County in connection with Glen’s
employment.  At the time of the move, Kaelyn was nearly five years old.  The family has
remained in Baltimore County.  The couple’s two other children, Haley and Aiden, were born
in Maryland on 21 August 1999 and 19 December 2002, respectively.
From the time the Koshkos moved to Maryland until October 2003, the Koshkos and
Hainings maintained a regular visitation regimen.  The families essentially took turns
traveling to one another’s homes once every month.  In between visits the grandparents and
grandchildren maintained a relationship via correspondence.  This visitation regimen abruptly
ceased in October 2003 when the adults of the two families became embroiled in a bitter
argument over Glen’s nonchalant approach to his terminally-ill mother’s deteriorating
condition.  Apparently disturbed by the Hainings’ criticism, Glen Koshko asserted that he
would no longer permit the Hainings to visit their grandchildren.  Despite the Hainings’
repeated attempts over several months to reconcile their dispute with the Koshkos and
reestablish visitation, the Koshkos remained largely incommunicado.  The Hainings retained
an attorney in an effort to facilitate some discussion, which was answered by the Koshkos’
proposal to allow one visit and the possibility of future visitation.  The Hainings refused,
declining to accept anything less than a commitment to regular visitation with the
grandchildren.
On 19 April 2004 the Hainings filed in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County a
grandparent visitation petition pursuant to the Maryland Grandparental Visitation Statute
(GVS).  The trial court entered an order granting the Hainings’ petition, finding that
visitation was in the best interests of the grandchildren.  In addition to establishing a rolling
schedule of four-hour visits every 45 days and quarterly overnight visits, the trial court
directed that the Koshkos and Hainings attend at least four joint, professional counseling
sessions to discuss issues relating to the visitation.  After an unsuccessful bid for a new trial,
the Koshkos appealed the judgment of the Circuit Court.
The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the judgment, holding that the GVS was
neither facially unconstitutional nor unconstitutional as applied to the Koshkos.  The
intermediate appellate court rejected the argument that the GVS violated the Koshkos’
fundamental right to parent, as articulated in Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 120 S. Ct.
2054, 147 L. Ed. 2d 49 (2000) (plurality), simply because it lacked an express presumption
that parental decisions are in the best interests of children.  Under the principle of
constitutional avoidance, the court interpreted the GVS to contain such a presumption.  The
Court of Special Appeals then disagreed with the Koshkos’ position that there must be a
threshold finding of either parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances as a predicate to
the statutorily-imposed best interests of the child inquiry.  Finally, the court affirmed the
visitation award upon a finding that the grandparents had rebutted successfully the
presumption in favor of the Koshkos’ decision to terminate visitation.  The Koshkos
petitioned the Court of Appeals, which granted a writ of certiorari to consider the Koshkos’
substantive due process challenge to the GVS.
The GVS, codified at Maryland Code (1984, 2004 Repl. Vol.), Family Law Article
§ 9-102, permits a Maryland court to grant grandparents reasonable visitation with their
grandchildren upon a finding that it is in the children’s best interests.  The express terms of
the statute, however, do not prescribe that courts apply a presumption in favor of parental
decisions relating to visitation with their children.  The U.S. Supreme Court held in Troxel
that substantive due process principles require that court determinations of third party
visitation cases under the best interest of the child standard must be informed by a parental
presumption.  Rather than invalidate the Maryland statute on its face, the Court of Appeals,
under the principle of constitutional avoidance, interpreted the GVS to contain the
presumption.
The Court, however, concluded under strict scrutiny analysis that the GVS was
unconstitutionally applied to the Koshkos because the statute lacked sufficiently narrow
tailoring to the State’s interest in children’s welfare vis-a-vis the children’s beneficent
exposure to grandparents.  Strict scrutiny was triggered because the statute implicated the
Koshkos’ fundamental right to parent.  Specifically, the GVS imposed a “direct and
substantial” interference with the Koshkos’ decision regarding visitation by interjecting the
state and third parties without a claim to a constitutional right to visitation into the custodial
parents’ decision-making process.  This process is generally left to the discretion of parents,
who are presumed to act in the best interests of their children.  The Court found this direct
interference also to be substantial in nature.  Although visitation matters may prove to be less
weighty than custody and adoption matters in the non-constitutional realm, for purposes of
substantive due process analysis, third party visitation disputes impede just as substantially
upon the fundamental right to parent as do custody and adoption disputes.  In order to remedy
this lack of narrow tailoring, the Court again employed the principle of constitutional
avoidance and applied the GVS with a judicial gloss.  This gloss requires a threshold finding
of parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances demonstrating the detriment that has or
will be imposed on the children absent visitation by their grandparents before the best
interests analysis may be engaged.  This parental unfitness/exceptional circumstances test
was imported from the third party custody case McDermott v. Dougherty, 385 Md. 320, 869
A.2d 751 (2005).  The Court reasoned that custody and visitation matters generally have been
decided under the same standards and that the fundamental right to parent is equally at risk
from undue state interference in the context of both custody and visitation determinations.
Accordingly, the parental unfitness/exceptional circumstances safeguard imposed in third
party custody determinations is appropriately applied in third party visitation matters as well.
The Court thus overruled its precedent in Fairbanks v. McCarter, 330 Md. 39, 622 A.2d 121
(1993), and its progeny that held such threshold findings unnecessary in third party visitation
cases.  The Court remanded the case for application of the new threshold requirement.
Circuit Court for Baltimore Cou nty
Case #03-C-04-4273
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF
MARYLAND
No. 35
September Term, 2006
GLEN KOSHKO, et ux.
v.
JOHN HAINING, et ux.
Bell, C.J.
Raker
Wilner
Cathell
Harrell
Greene
Eldridge, John C. (retired, specially
assigned),
JJ.
Opinion by Harrell, J.
Eldridge, J., Dissents.
Filed:   January 12, 2007
1Family Law § 9-102 reads:
An equity court may:
(1) consider a petition for reasonable visitation of a grandchild by a
grandparent; and
(2) if the court finds it to be in the best interests of the child, grant visitation
rights to the grandparent.
This case requires us to consider a constitutional challenge to Maryland’s
grandparental visitation statute (“GVS”), Maryland Code (1984, 2004 Repl. Vol.), Family
Law Article § 9-102.1  Specifically, we are asked to decide whether the GVS is
unconstitutional, under substantive due process analysis, because it fails to recognize a
rebuttable presumption accorded the propriety of a parent’s determination of what is in his
or her child’s best interest with respect to visitation with a grandparent.  We further shall
consider whether substantive due process requires a threshold finding of either parental
unfitness or exceptional circumstances counseling in favor of grandparent visitation before
a court may proceed to determine what is in a child’s best interests.
I. FACTS
The instant case involves a bitter familial conflict centered around Petitioners’, Glen
and Andrea Koshko’s, opposition to visitation by their minor children (Kaelyn, Hailey, and
Aiden) with the children’s maternal grandparents, Respondents, John and Maureen Haining.
The origins of the discontent between the adults harkens back to events long passed.  It may
have began as early as when then-Andrea Haining was living with her parents in
Middletown, New Jersey.  At age eighteen, Andrea left her parents’ home, assertedly to
2
escape the rancor of her parents’ persistent and occasionally violent feuding, and moved to
Florida with her boyfriend, James Atkats.  While in Florida, Andrea became pregnant with
her first child, Kaelyn.  Mr. Atkats deserted Andrea and his unborn child.  The young mother-
to-be returned to New Jersey to live with her parents again.  Andrea gave birth to Kaelyn on
26 September 1994.  For the first three years of Kaelyn’s life, she was raised in the Hainings’
residence.  Under this arrangement, the Hainings were active participants in Kaelyn’s
upbringing.
During Andrea’s stay with her parents, she met and began dating Glen Koshko.  In
September 1997, Andrea and Kaelyn moved out of the Hainings’ house in order to live with
Glen in the nearby town of Point Pleasant.  Due to the proximity of the couple’s residence
to Middletown, however, Maureen Haining maintained a close relationship with Kaelyn and
visited often.  Eventually, Glen and Andrea became affianced and, contrary to the plans and
wishes of the Hainings, eloped in 1998.  In June 1999, the newlywed couple and child moved
to Baltimore County in connection with Glen’s employment.  At the time of the move,
Kaelyn was nearly five years old.  The family remained in Baltimore County throughout the
times relevant to this litigation.  The couple’s two other children, Haley and Aiden, were born
in Maryland on 21 August 1999 and 19 December 2002, respectively.
Undeterred by the physical distance between them, the Koshkos and Hainings visited
one another approximately once a month until the parties became estranged in October 2003.
The Hainings, at the trial of the present case, adduced various items of evidence, including
2For the unacquainted, E-Z Pass, though probably familiar to the inhabitants of the
mid-Atlantic seaboard, is a commercial service that allows motorists to pay into an account
from which certain roadway and bridge tolls are deducted when the motorist passes through
the prescribed toll lanes equipped to receive the transmission sent from the motorist’s E-Z
Pass transmitter “tag”.
3
photographs, videos, and E-Z Pass2 billings intended to corroborate this visitation regimen.
Included in this evidence was a log compiled by the Hainings detailing the times and
locations of the thirty-one visits that occurred between May 2001 and October 2003.  The
trial court also received testimony and documentary evidence of telephone calls, letters, and
cards exchanged by the Hainings and the Koshko children, offered to illustrate the degree of
closeness between the grandparents and grandchildren.  
The familial dispute foreshadowed in this opinion erupted in October 2003,
precipitated by the Hainings’ vehement disapproval of Glen Koshko’s approach to the
deteriorating condition of his mother, who was then in the final stages of terminal cancer.
The Hainings, particularly Maureen, felt that Glen was spending too much of his free time
engaged in self-indulgent social activities, including a five-day trip to Glen’s college
homecoming in South Carolina, rather than visiting with his ailing mother.  During a
telephone conversation with Andrea the week after the homecoming trip, Maureen Haining
proposed that the Koshkos travel to New Jersey so that Glen could visit his mother while the
Hainings would look after the children.  Andrea declined the invitation and indicated that
Glen had a birthday party planned for that weekend.  Maureen renewed her offer, observing
that Glen’s mother would not live much longer and that the Koshkos already had spent a long
4
weekend recreating in South Carolina.  Andrea related Maureen’s comments to Glen and he
joined the telephone call on an extension.  He and Maureen had what can be described
charitably as an unkind exchange of sentiments, resulting in Glen’s assertion that the
Hainings would not be allowed to see their grandchildren again.  John Haining, hearing from
his wife what transpired, confirmed the details with Andrea and then left a message on
Glen’s cell phone voicemail threatening to assault him later that evening in Maryland.
Following this contretemps, the Hainings apparently attempted on several occasions
to make amends, which were rebuffed or ignored by the Koshkos.  The Koshkos also
disregarded a letter from Andrea’s sister, Tracey, relating to the children’s proposed roles in
her wedding planned for August 2004.  The Koshkos remained largely incommunicado from
their extended family on the Haining side for approximately four months until an attorney
engaged by the Hainings wrote to Glen and Andrea on or about 27 February 2004, suggesting
mediation.  The Koshkos responded to the suggestion by offering an arrangement permitting
one visit with the children and the possibility of future visits based upon logistical
considerations.  The Hainings refused.  Instead, the Hainings, unsuccessfully, demanded that
the Koshkos commit to a consistent visitation schedule.
The Hainings filed their grandparent visitation petition on 19 April 2004 in the Circuit
Court for Baltimore County.  Following many months of motions and discovery, the petition
was considered on its merits during a two-day trial in the Circuit Court.  Ruling from the
bench, the trial judge addressed the evidence adduced over the course of the hearing,
3Troxel will be discussed in greater detail, infra Section II.B.
5
concluding that the Hainings had rebutted the presumption in favor of the parents’
determination of what is in their child’s best interests.  See Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57,
120 S. Ct. 2054, 147 L. Ed. 2d 49 (2000) (plurality).  The trial court entered an order granting
the Hainings’ petition, finding that visitation was in the best interests of the grandchildren.
In addition to establishing a rolling schedule of four-hour visits every 45 days and quarterly
overnight visits, the trial court directed that the Koshkos and Hainings attend at least four
joint, professional counseling sessions to discuss issues relating to the visitation and “how
the parties will re-introduce the Hainings back into the grandchildren’s lives.”  The Koshkos
unsuccessfully moved for a new trial and then appealed the judgment.  The Court of Special
Appeals affirmed the judgment of the Circuit Court.  Koshko v. Haining, 168 Md. App. 556,
897 A.2d 866 (2006).
The Court of Special Appeals first addressed the Koshkos’ contention that the
Maryland GVS is facially unconstitutional in light of the Troxel decision.3  The intermediate
appellate court relied on the principle of constitutional avoidance and held that the GVS
implicitly contains the presumption that parents act in the best interests of their children.
Koshko, 168 Md. App. at 570-71, 897 A.2d at 874-75.  Next, the Court of Special Appeals
disagreed with Petitioners’ argument that the GVS was unconstitutionally applied to them
because the best interest standard was engaged without a threshold determination of parental
unfitness or exceptional circumstances, suggested as necessary in custody cases by
6
McDermott v. Dougherty, 385 Md. 320, 869 A.2d 751 (2005).  The intermediate appellate
court, relying on this Court’s holding in Fairbanks v. McCarter, excused the need for such
a threshold finding based on the lesser intrusion on parental rights occasioned by visitation
decisions relative to custody decisions.  Koshko, 168 Md. App. at 582, 897 A.2d at 882
(citing Fairbanks, 330 Md. 39, 48, 622 A.2d 121, 125-26 (1993)).  The court distinguished
McDermott, a third party custody case, from Fairbanks, a third party visitation case, and
refused to venture the view that McDermott impliedly overruled Fairbanks with respect to
the need for a threshold finding of parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances.  Koshko,
168 Md. App. at 583-84, 897 A.2d at 882-83.  Finally, our appellate colleagues turned to the
argument that the trial court had applied incorrectly the presumption favoring the parents’
decision, to the benefit of the grandparents.  Primarily emphasizing the relationship between
the Hainings and their grandchildren, particularly Kaelyn, and the feud between the Hainings
and Koshkos, the Court of Special Appeals held that “there was sufficient evidence to rebut
the presumption.”  Koshko, 168 Md. App. at 586, 897 A.2d at 883.  The court also
characterized the trial court’s questioning of Andrea Koshko concerning her reasons for
terminating visits by the Hainings as “an obvious effort to give [the] [p]arents a final
opportunity to bolster the rebutted presumption for purposes of the weighing process on best
interests,” rather than the court applying a presumption to the benefit of the grandparents.
Koshko, 168 Md. App. at 586, 897 A.2d at 884.
4Petitioners framed the following questions in their petition:
1. Whether Md. Code Ann. Fam. Law Art. § 9-102 is constitutional under the Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Whether the lower court unconstitutionally applied Md. Code Ann. Fam. Law Art.
§ 9-102 in granting visitation of the minor children to grandpa[r]ents.
5The original version of the GVS in Maryland, enacted in 1981, was amended in 1993.
The provision in the original statute providing that grandparent visitation could only be
considered upon the dissolution of the marriage of the child’s parents was eliminated in
1993.  Koshko v. Haining, 168 Md. App. 556, 568-69, 897 A.2d 866, 873-74 (2006).
7
We issued a writ of certiorari, on the petition of the Koshkos, 393 Md. 245, 900 A.2d
751 (2006).4
II. ANALYSIS
Before we engage the questions concerning the validity of the Maryland GVS, we note
some relevant precedential guideposts framing the constitutional landscape and informing
our analysis.  We do so because the arguments raised by Petitioners and amici necessarily call
into question the continuing soundness of certain of our precedents relative to the GVS.  We
shall note the relevant cases in chronological (oldest to most recent) and “evolutionary”
order.
A. Maryland Precedent Bearing on the GVS
Fairbanks v. McCarter
The first occasion had by the Court of Appeals to pass on the Maryland GVS was in
1993, some 12 years after the statute was enacted,5 in Fairbanks v. McCarter.  Fairbanks
arose from a disagreement between a divorced father and maternal grandparents over the
8
amount of time the maternal grandparents should be permitted to visit with the children.
Fairbanks, 330 Md. at 43, 622 A.2d at 123.  To settle the dispute, the aggrieved grandparents
filed a petition under the GVS as it existed prior to 1993 (see n.4 supra).  Id.  The trial court
denied the petition because it found that the grandparents had not demonstrated exceptional
circumstances militating that visitation should be ordered.  Fairbanks, 330 Md. at 44, 622
A.2d at 124. Bypassing the Court of Special Appeals, the Court of Appeals considered
whether such circumstances must be found before visitation could be ordered under the GVS.
Id.
In response to the argument that the GVS should be construed to include a
requirement that “only exceptional circumstances, present as conditions precedent, may
justify an award of visitation to grandparents,” the Court flatly stated that nothing in the plain
language of the statute required such a predicate showing.  Fairbanks, 330 Md. at 47-48, 622
A.2d at 125.  In addition, the Court held that a threshold showing of parental unfitness is
similarly unnecessary.  Id.  In so doing the Court disapproved of dicta in Skeens v. Paterno,
60 Md. App. 48, 480 A.2d 820 (1984), suggesting that exceptional circumstances were a
prerequisite to grandparental visitation, as is the case of a custody determination.  Fairbanks,
330 Md. at 47-48, 622 A.2d at 125 (citing Skeens, 60 Md. App. at 61, 480 A.2d at 826 (“It
may well be, as we said in Boothe, that custody should be granted to a grandparent (as against
a parent) only under exceptional circumstances. That may also be true as to grandparental
visitation.”) (citation omitted)).  Instead, the Court opined that “[v]isitation is a considerably
6The Fairbanks Court proposed that its non-exhaustive list of factors include:
the nature and stability of the child's relationships with its
parents; the nature and substantiality of the relationship between
the child and the grandparent, taking into account frequency of
contact, regularity of contact, and amount of time spent together;
the potential benefits and detriments to the child in granting the
visitation order; the effect, if any, grandparental visitation would
have on the child's attachment to its nuclear family; the physical
and emotional health of the adults involved; and the stability of
the child's living and schooling arrangements.
  330 Md. at 50, 622 A.2d at 126-27.
9
less weighty matter than outright custody of a child, and does not demand the enhanced
protections, embodied in the exceptional circumstances test, that attend custody awards.”
Fairbanks, 330 Md. at 48, 622 A.2d at 126.
The Fairbanks Court stated that the best interests of the child standard is dispositive,
which should be resolved in the “sound discretion of the trial court.” 330 Md. at 49, 622 A.2d
at 126.  The Court entrusted trial judges, whom it believed were best suited to evaluate the
peculiarities of the individual cases they encounter, to evaluate “all relevant factors and
circumstances pertaining to the grandchild’s best interests,” including a number of factors
delineated by the Court.6  Fairbanks, 330 Md. at 50, 622 A.2d at 126-27.
Beckman v. Boggs
In Beckman v. Boggs, the Court of Appeals was asked to interpret the GVS in the
context of a paternal grandparents’ award of visitation challenged by maternal grandparents
who, with the consent of the natural father, had adopted their grandchild after the child’s
mother died.  337 Md. 688, 690, 655 A.2d 901, 902 (1995).  At issue was whether the
7The Maner Court referred to the Supreme Court’s definition of “nuclear family” as
“essentially a couple and their dependent children.”  Maner v. Stephenson, 342 Md. 461, 463
n.1, 677 A.2d 560, 560 n.1 (1996) (quoting Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494,
500, 97 S. Ct. 1932, 1936, 52 L. Ed. 2d 531 (1977)).  We surmise that the term “intact” is
meant to indicate that the couple had not obtained a divorce.
10
adoption by the maternal grandparents terminated any visitation right to which the paternal
grandparents laid claim.  The Court upheld the trial court’s grant of visitation as it did not
abuse its “sound discretion” in evaluating the best interests of the child.  Beckman, 337 Md.
at 703, 655 A.2d at 908.  The Court excused the trial court’s failure to make findings as to
all of the factors mentioned in Fairbanks, see supra n. 5, because those factors were not
intended to be “absolute,” but merely “illustrative of what should be considered.”  Beckman,
337 Md. at 703-04, 655 A.2d at 909.  The Beckman Court echoed the conclusion reached in
Fairbanks that the showing of exceptional circumstances is not a necessary prerequisite for
grandparental visitation.  337 Md. at 692-93, 655 A.2d at 903.
Maner v. Stephenson
One year after Beckman, the Court of Appeals was again confronted with a
grandparent visitation dispute in Maner v. Stephenson, 342 Md. 461, 677 A.2d 560 (1996).
Maner was the first GVS case to involve a petition concerning the children of an “intact
nuclear family.” 7  342 Md. at 463, 677 A.2d at 560.  Fairbanks dealt with a divorced father.
Beckman involved a widowed father and adoptive maternal grandparents.  The Court in
Maner read the GVS to allow courts to grant grandparental visitation petitions regardless of
whether the parents’ marriage was intact.  Maner, 342 Md. at 467-68, 677 A.2d at 563.  It
11
also reiterated the lessons of Fairbanks: namely, that exceptional circumstances are not
required to be shown by petitioning grandparents and that a trial court should exercise its
discretion in weighing a child’s best interests according to the totality of the circumstances.
Maner, 342 Md. at 468-70, 677 A.2d at 563-64.  Maner was also the first grandparental
visitation decision specifically to discuss any presumption as to a child’s best interests: the
Court expressly refused to bestow upon the grandparents a rebuttable presumption in favor
of their visitation.  342 Md. at 470, 677 A.2d at 564.
Wolinski v. Browneller
In 1997, the Court of Special Appeals decided Wolinski v. Browneller, involving a
quarrel between a single mother and her boyfriend’s parents over the visitation schedule to
be used in a mutually sought visitation order.  115 Md. App. 285, 291, 693 A.2d 30, 33.  The
intermediate appellate court restated many of the conclusions reached in Fairbanks, but with
some additional argumentation and authority.  The Wolinski court recapitulated that an award
of visitation, though a form of “temporary custody,” 115 Md. App. at 305, 693 A.2d at 39
(quoting Beckman, 337 Md. at 703 n.7, 655 A.2d at 908 n.7), is less intrusive upon the liberty
interests of parents than adoption or custody awards.  Id. (quoting M.L.B. v. S.L.J., 519 U.S.
102, 127, 117 S. Ct. 555, 570, 136 L. Ed. 2d 473 (1996) and Fairbanks, 330 Md. at 48, 622
A.2d at 126).   Expanding upon that notion, the court reasoned that, as a matter of degree, a
court’s granting of a grandparent’s visitation schedule (as opposed to the grant of visitation
in the first instance) over that of the parent’s preference was even less of an affront to the
12
parent’s constitutional rights.  Wolinski, 115 Md. App. at 307, 693 A.2d at 40.  Intertwined
in this analysis was the proposition that grandparents need not show exceptional
circumstances to prevail in their quest for visitation.  Wolinski, 115 Md. App. at 306, 693
A.2d at 40.  The Wolinski court also parroted the Fairbanks decision with respect to the
discretion vested in the trial court and the best interests standard as the prevailing guide to
decisions made in this context.  Wolinski, 115 Md. App. at 319, 693 A.2d at 46.
  The Court of Special Appeals in Wolinski did offer, however, some additional
explication on the operation of the GVS.  The court expressly found a constitutional
presumption favoring parents’ determination of what is in their child’s best interests in the
context of a grandparental visitation dispute.  Facilitated by the decisional law of the U.S.
Supreme Court and Maryland Court of Appeals recognizing this presumption in custody and
adoption proceedings, the intermediate appellate court applied a somewhat less commanding
presumption to the GVS.  Wolinski, 115 Md. App. at 309-12, 693 A.2d at 42-43.
Nonetheless, the court stated that the presumption favoring a parent’s wishes regarding their
child (in this case, concerning the visitation schedule) could be overcome by a trial court’s
contrary finding of visitation being in a child’s best interest, a determination which is entitled
to deference upon judicial review.  Wolinski, 115 Md. App. at 319, 693 A.2d at 46.  The
Court of Special Appeals opined that parents’ rights are protected inasmuch as petitioning
grandparents bear the burden to produce evidence discrediting a parent’s wishes and a trial
court cannot “[s]imply [] ignore a parent’s wishes . . . .”  Id.
13
Brice v. Brice
In July 2000, the Court of Special Appeals filed its opinion in Brice v. Brice, 133 Md.
App. 302, 754 A.2d 1132, the first reported Maryland appellate opinion on the issue of
grandparental visitation following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Troxel.  In Brice,
the intermediate appellate court, based upon a perceived factual similarity with Troxel, held
that the Maryland GVS was unconstitutional as applied to a mother who neither was found
to be unfit nor opposed to any visitation by the petitioning grandparents.  133 Md. App. at
309, 754 A.2d at 1136.  Brice also noted Wolinski’s conclusion regarding the slighter degree
of parental rights infringement present in grandparental visitation schedule disputes.  133
Md. App. at 309-10, 754 A.2d at 1136.
In re Tamara R.
Although not a grandparent visitation case, In re Tamara R., 136 Md. App. 236, 764
A.2d 844 (2000), presents a third party visitation dispute relevant to our analysis here.  In re
Tamara R. involved a visitation dispute between a father and his minor daughter found to be
a child in need of assistance (CINA), who was separated from her younger siblings still in
the custody of their father.  136 Md. App. at 240-41, 764 A.2d 846.  The father objected to
any visitation by his custodial children with the CINA sibling, citing his fundamental right
to control the upbringing of his children outside of state interference.  In re Tamara R., 136
Md. App. at 241, 764 A.2d 846.  The Court of Special Appeals synthesized the holdings of
Fairbanks and Troxel, yielding a conclusion that the Fairbanks factors concerning the best
14
interest determination be viewed through a lens deferring to a parent’s wishes: “The best way
to do this, we believe, is to apply a presumption that the parent’s decision to decline visitation
is in the best interest of the child over whom the parent has custody, and to place the burden
on the non-parent seeking visitation to rebut that presumption.”  In re Tamara R., 136 Md.
App. at 252, 764 A.2d 853.
Shurupoff v. Vockroth
In a grandparent custody case, Shurupoff v. Vockroth, 372 Md. 639, 814 A.2d 543
(2003), the Court endeavored to clarify language from a seminal family law case, Ross v.
Hoffman, 280 Md. 172, 372 A.2d 582 (1977), concerning the application of the best interest
of the child standard.  As will be discussed in our summary of the later decided McDermott
v. Dougherty, supra, the Court ultimately was not successful in this attempt to bring some
clarity to the muddied waters of our third party custody jurisprudence.  The Shurupoff Court
identified seemingly contradictory verbiage from Ross that described the best interests
standard as “always determinative,” but later qualified that
it is only upon a determination by an equity court that the parent is unfit or that
there are exceptional circumstances which make custody in the parent
detrimental to the best interest of the child, that the court need inquire into the
best interest of the child in order to make a proper custodial disposition.
372 Md. at 661, 814 A.2d at 556-57 (quoting Ross, 280 Md. at 178-79, 372 A.2d at 587).
Shurupoff attempted to reconcile this apparent contradiction by stating that what Ross really
meant was that parental decisions are entitled to a rebuttable presumption as being in their
child’s best interests, which presumption may be rebutted, inter alia, by a showing that the
15
relevant parent is, or the parents are, unfit or that exceptional circumstances exist.   372 Md.
at 662, 814 A.2d at 557.
Herrick v. Wain
In Herrick v. Wain, 154 Md. App. 222, 838 A.2d 1263 (2003), another grandparental
visitation case, the Court of Special Appeals recited Fairbanks’s pronouncement that
exceptional circumstances are not required in order to award grandparental visitation, as well
as the factors to be examined during the application of the best interest of the child standard.
154 Md. App. at 231-32, 838 A.2d at 1268.  The Herrick court also quoted approvingly from
Wolinski the proposition that petitioning grandparents bear the burden of producing evidence
sufficient to satisfy the Fairbanks factors regarding rebuttal of the parental presumption.  154
Md. App. at 238, 838 A.2d at 1272.
McDermott v. Dougherty
In McDermott v. Dougherty, 385 Md. 320, 869 A.2d 751 (2005), we again dealt with
a grandparent custody case, as was the context in Shurupoff.  As a foundation for our opinion
in McDermott, we stated that fit parents stand in a position superior to third parties relative
to the constitutional right to the “care, custody, and control” of their children.  385 Md. at
353, 869 A.2d at 770.  We then recanted our earlier attempt in Shurupoff to explain the
language in Ross v. Hoffman regarding the best interest of the child standard, holding instead
that:
generally, in private actions in which private third parties are attempting to
gain custody of children of natural parents over the objection of the natural
16
parents, it is necessary first to prove that the parent is unfit or that there are
extraordinary circumstances posing serious detriment to the child, before the
court may apply a “best interest” standard.
McDermott, 385 Md. at 374-75, 869 A.2d at 783.  Thus, absent a showing of parental
unfitness or exceptional circumstances, “the constitutional right [of parents to the ‘care,
custody, and control’ of their children] is the ultimate determinative factor . . . .”
McDermott, 385 Md. at 418, 869 A.2d at 808.  Having determined that an examination of
whether exceptional circumstances exist should precede the need for a best interests analysis,
we embraced the factors enumerated in Ross v. Hoffman for identifying exceptional
circumstances.  McDermott, 385 Md. at 419, 869 A.2d at 809.
B. The U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision in Troxel v. Granville
Although we decide the present case based principally on the ample Maryland
authority catalogued above pertaining to grandparental custody and visitation, Troxel
occupies a role of some importance insofar as it has influenced, to some degree, the
Maryland cases that followed its filing.
Troxel resulted in a plurality opinion authored by Justice O’Connor, separate
concurring opinions by Justices Souter and Thomas, and three individual dissenting opinions
penned by Justices Stevens, Scalia, and Kennedy.  The plurality opinion and the two
concurrences concluded that a Washington State third party visitation statute violated the
dictates of federal due process.  Troxel, 530 U.S. at 68, 120 S. Ct. at 2061 (the plurality and
17
Justice Thomas resting on an “as applied basis,” with Justice Souter favoring facial
invalidation).
The Washington statute read: “‘Any person may petition the court for visitation rights
at any time including, but not limited to, custody proceedings.  The court may order visitation
rights for any person when visitation may serve the best interest of the child whether or not
there has been any change of circumstances.’”  Troxel, 530 U.S. at 61, 120 S. Ct. at 2057-58
(quoting Wash. Rev. Code § 26.10.160(3) (1994)).  A trial court granted grandparental
visitation with a single mother’s children to her ex-boyfriend’s parents.  Troxel, 530 U.S. at
60, 120 S. Ct. at 2057.  The Washington intermediate appellate court dismissed the paternal
grandparents’ visitation petition on the basis that they lacked proper standing.  The
grandparents appealed to the Washington Supreme Court.  Troxel, 530 U.S. at 62, 120 S. Ct.
at 2058.  The Washington high court concluded that the grandparents had standing, but
invalidated the visitation statute on its face as an affront to the mother’s fundamental parental
rights in two respects.  Troxel, 530 U.S. at 63, 120 S. Ct. at 2058.  First, the court found
problematic the lack of a threshold showing of harm validating the state’s interference in the
parent’s affairs.  Id.  Second, because the statute permitted any person to maintain a visitation
petition solely on the basis of a child’s best interests, the state was invested with unfettered
discretion to award visitation premised on a single judge’s opinion of which was the superior
arrangement for the child.  Troxel, 530 U.S. at 63, 120 S. Ct. at 2058-59.
18
The Supreme Court plurality in Troxel affirmed the judgment of the Washington high
court, but did so based upon a different rationale.  At the outset, the plurality opinion
observed that contained within the bounds of the federal Due Process Clause is a
fundamental liberty interest bestowed upon parents concerning the “care, custody, and
control” of their children.  Troxel, 530 U.S. at 65-66, 120 S. Ct. at 2059-60.  Of the three
factors relied upon to support the Court’s decision that the Washington statute infringed upon
this right, the first was that there was no finding that the custodial parent was unfit.  Troxel,
530 U.S. at 68, 120 S. Ct. at 2061.  When the trial court engaged its analysis of whether the
requested grandparental visitation was in the child’s best interests, it failed to honor the
“traditional presumption that a fit parent will act in the best interest of his or her child.”
Troxel, 530 U.S. at 69, 120 S. Ct. at 2062.  The second factor cited by the plurality opinion
was that the trial court erred in not assigning “some special weight” to the parent’s estimation
of her child’s best interests.  Troxel, 530 U.S. at 70, 120 S. Ct. at 2062.  As the final factor,
the Court noted that the custodial mother never desired to terminate visitation completely,
but merely to reduce its frequency.  Troxel, 530 U.S. at 71, 120 S. Ct. at 2062-63.
The four Justice plurality also commented that the trial court’s ruling was based upon
meager factual findings relating to the children’s best interests, which improperly was
determined under a presumption in favor of the grandparents.  Troxel, 530 U.S. at 72, 120
S. Ct. at 2072.  The Court then faced a variation on one of the issues now before us: although
the resolution of a grandparental visitation petition cannot be made upon the basis of a
19
“simple disagreement between the [trial court] and [parent] concerning her children’s best
interests,” the Court declined to decide whether the Due Process Clause requires all
grandparental visitation statutes to mandate a threshold showing of harm to the children as
a prerequisite to granting visitation.  Troxel, 530 U.S. at 72-73, 120 S. Ct. at 2063-64.
Indeed, the Court refused to strike down any state grandparental visitation statutes and
acknowledged the various case-by-case approaches states take in ruling on visitation
petitions, including Maryland’s Fairbanks factors.  Troxel, 530 U.S. at 73-74, 120 S. Ct. at
2064 (citing Fairbanks, 330 Md. at 49-50, 622 A.2d at 126-27).
The concurring opinions added little to the rationale contained in the plurality opinion.
Justice Souter, however, hinted that parents enjoy a presumption that their decisions
regarding their children’s best interests are correct, in light of their underlying fundamental
parental rights.  Troxel, 530 U.S. at 79, 120 S. Ct. at 2067 (Souter, J., concurring) (“It would
be anomalous, then, to subject a parent to any individual judge’s choice of a child’s
associates from out of the general population merely because the judge might think himself
more enlightened than the child’s parent.  To say the least . . . parental choice in such matters
is not merely a default rule.”).  Language in Justice Thomas’s concurrence also may be
viewed as an endorsement of this presumption favoring fit parents’ choices regarding their
children.  Troxel, 530 U.S. at 80, 120 S. Ct. at 2068 (“Here, the State of Washington lacks
even a legitimate governmental interest-to say nothing of a compelling one-in second-
guessing a fit parent’s decision regarding visitation with third parties.”).  Further, Justice
20
Thomas posited that the parental right at stake, due to its fundamental nature, would invoke
strict scrutiny review under which the statute would be invalidated.  Id.
C. The Present Case
As the parents of Kaelyn, Haley, and Aiden, the Koshkos are invested with the
fundamental right of parents generally to direct and control the upbringing of their children;
the pages of the United States and M aryland Reports corroborate this point.  In re Samone
H., 385 Md. 282, 300, 869 A.2d 370, 380 (2005) (stating that “[a] parent’s interest in raising
a child is, no doubt, a fundamental right, recognized by the United States Supreme Court and
this Court,” and cataloguing cases); In re Yve S., 373 Md. 551, 565-66, 819 A.2d 1030, 1038-
39 (2003); Boswell v. Boswell, 352 Md. 204, 217-18, 721 A.2d 662, 668-69 (1998); Sider v.
Sider, 334 Md. 512, 527 n.12, 639 A.2d 1076, 1084 n.12 (1994); accord Troxel, 530 U.S. at
65-66, 120 S. Ct. at 2060 (stating that “we have recognized the fundamental right of parents
to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children,” and cataloging
cases); Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 753, 102 S. Ct. 1388, 1394, 71 L. Ed. 2d 599
(1982); Parham v. J. R., 442 U.S. 584, 602, 99 S. Ct. 2493, 2504, 61 L. Ed. 2d 101 (1979);
Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651-52, 92 S. Ct. 1208, 1213, 31 L. Ed. 2d 551 (1972).  This
liberty interest provides the constitutional context which looms over any judicial rumination
on the question of custody or visitation.  McDermott, 385 Md. at 352-53, 869 A.2d at 770;
Wolinski, 115 Md. App. at 302, 693 A.2d at 38.  Grandparents, on the other hand, do not
enjoy a constitutionally recognized liberty interest in visitation with their grandchildren.
21
L.F.M. v. Dep’t of Social Servs., 67 Md. App. 379, 386-88, 507 A.2d 1151, 1154-55 (1986).
Rather, whatever right they may have to such visitation is solely of statutory origin
implemented through judicial order.  Parents and grandparents, therefore, stand on unequal
footing in disputes over visitation with minors.  See McDermott, 385 Md. at 353, 869 A.2d
at 770.
As a natural incident of possessing this fundamental liberty interest, the Koshkos are
also entitled to the long-settled presumption that a parent’s decision regarding the custody
or visitation of his or her child with third parties is in the child’s best interest.  McDermott,
385 Md. at 423, 869 A.2d at 811; Monroe v. Monroe, 329 Md. 758, 781 n.4, 621 A.2d 898,
909 n.4 (1993) (quoting Ross v. Pick, 199 Md. 341, 351, 86 A.2d 463, 468 (1952) (“Where
parents claim the custody of a child, there is a prima facie presumption that the child's
welfare will be best subserved in the care and custody of its parents rather than in the custody
of others, and the burden is then cast upon the parties opposing them to show the
contrary.”)); Ross v. Hoffman, 280 Md. at 177-78, 372 A.2d at 586-87; DeGrange v. Kline,
254 Md. 240, 242-43, 254 A.2d 353, 354 (1969); accord Troxel, 530 U.S. at 69, 120 S. Ct.
at 2062.  This presumption is premised on the notion that “the affection of a parent for a child
is as strong and potent as any that springs from human relations and leads to desire and
efforts to care properly for and raise the child, which are greater than another would be likely
to display.”  Melton v. Connolly, 219 Md. 184, 188, 148 A.2d 387, 389 (1959).  The Koshkos
here protest that their parental rights and the attendant presumption favoring parental
8In a different context, we, too, have observed that the best interest standard, by itself,
may be inadequate to protect constitutional liberties.  See Mack v. Mack, 329 Md. 188, 221-
22, 618 A.2d 744, 760-61 (1993) (holding that, in determinations of whether to terminate
such life support, a best interests standard alone would not adequately protect the lives of
those in persistent vegetative states whose wishes regarding the termination of hydration and
ventilation is unknown).
22
decisions relating to their children’s best interests are disregarded both by the express terms
of § 9-102 of the Family Law Article, as well as its application by the trial court in the
present grandparental visitation dispute.
1. Facial Validity of the Maryland GVS
The Maryland GVS simply provides that grandparents may petition for “reasonable
visitation” and empowers equity courts to grant such petitions if grandparental visitation is
“in the best interests of the child.”  Family Law § 9-102.  Attacking the facial
constitutionality of the GVS, the Koshkos argue that the statute contravenes Troxel’s
interpretation of the due process safeguards that must accompany a grandparental visitation
statute.  The Koshkos point to Troxel’s condemnation of the Washington State GVS for its
lack of any express acknowledgment of the parental presumption or assignment of “special
weight” to parents’ estimations of their children’s best interests.  530 U.S. at 67, 120 S. Ct.
at 2061 (“[The Washington statute] contains no requirement that a court afford the parent’s
decision any presumption of validity or any weight whatsoever.  Instead, [it] places the best-
interest determination solely in the hands of the judge.”).8  This, however, is an incomplete
extraction of Troxel’s holding on the point.  Petitioners overlook the plurality’s observation
that the Washington Supreme Court refused to apply a judicial gloss to the Washington
9Indeed, the Court of Special Appeals, nine years prior, read the presumption into the
GVS, albeit one “not of equal strength” as the presumption in custody and adoption cases.
Wolinski, 115 Md. App. at 312, 693 A.2d at 43.
10This is the name given by U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts to the “tool
for choosing between competing plausible interpretations of a statutory text, resting on the
reasonable presumption that Congress did not intend the alternative which raises serious
constitutional doubts.”  Clark v. Martinez, 543 U.S. 371, 381-82, 125 S. Ct. 716, 724-25, 160
L. Ed. 2d 734 (2005).
23
statute so as to engraft a parental presumption in order to remedy the statute’s otherwise
“breathtakingly broad” provisions.  Id. (“The Washington Supreme Court had the opportunity
to give § 26.10.160(3) a narrower reading, but it declined to do so.”).  The Troxel Court, for
that reason, was bound by the strictures of federalism to abide by the Washington Supreme
Court’s interpretation of the scope of its state statute.  See Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S.
476, 483-84, 113 S. Ct. 2194, 2198-99, 124 L. Ed. 2d 436 (1993) (“There is no doubt that we
are bound by a state court’s construction of a state statute.”).  We shall take a different tack
than our Washington colleagues.
As the Court of Special Appeals noted, the Maryland GVS fairly and easily may be
supplemented by judicial interpretation with an inferred presumption that parental decisions
regarding their children are valid.9  Koshko, 168 Md. App. at 570-71, 897 A.2d at 874-75.
This superimposition of the parental presumption onto the GVS is permitted by the so-called
“canon of constitutional avoidance”,10 which provides that “a statute will be construed so as
to avoid a conflict with the Constitution whenever that course is reasonably possible.”  In re
James D., 295 Md. 314, 327, 455 A.2d 966, 972 (1983) (citing Deems v. W. Md. Ry. Co., 247
24
Md. 95, 113, 231 A.2d 514, 524 (1967)); County Comm’rs v. Meekins, 50 Md. 28, 39-40
(1878).
This canon is animated by the axiomatic principle that statutes carry a strong
presumption of constitutionality.  Ayres v. Townsend, 324 Md. 666, 675, 598 A.2d 470, 475
(1991); Edgewood Nursing Home v. Maxwell, 282 Md. 422, 427, 384 A.2d 748, 751 (1978);
Cochran v. Preston, 108 Md. 220, 232, 70 A. 113, 115 (1908).  We have said that “one
attacking [the] validity [of a law passed in the exercise of police power] has the burden of
affirmatively and clearly establishing its invalidity; every intendment is in favor of the
validity of the statute where there is a substantial relationship between its object and the
means employed to attain that object.”  Aero Motors, Inc. v. Motor Vehicle Admin., 274 Md.
567, 589, 337 A.2d 685, 699 (1975).  Thus, a party challenging the facial validity of a statute
“must establish that no set of circumstances exist under which the Act would be valid.”
United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745, 107 S. Ct. 2095, 2100, 95 L. Ed. 2d 697, 707
(1987).
The Koshkos have not persuaded us sufficiently to defeat the presumption weighing
in favor of the constitutionality of the Maryland GVS.  The only apparent indicia to which
the Koshkos point is a lack in the legislative history of the GVS of a articulated compelling
governmental interest.  As we explain, infra, the General Assembly rightfully had in mind
the compelling state interest of the welfare of children by providing a means for grandparents
to maintain visitation with them under certain circumstances.  The Koshkos’ argument that
25
the presence of a presumption in favor of their decision on the matter of grandparental
visitation is constitutionally mandated belies their facial challenge.
We shall do here as the Court of Special Appeals did: to save the statute from
invalidation, we read into the GVS the parental presumption both as mandated by substantive
due process and traditionally observed in Maryland common law.  Indeed, this Court, in order
to bring statutes into compliance with constitutional principles, previously has applied
limiting constructions to enactments that would otherwise sweep too broadly.  See, e.g.,
Galloway v. State, 365 Md. 599, 627, 634, 781 A.2d 851, 867, 871 (2001) (redeeming a
harassment law from a void-for-vagueness challenge by reading in a “reasonable person
standard”); Becker v. State, 363 Md. 77, 90-92, 767 A.2d 816, 823-24 (2001) (reading a drug
nuisance abatement statute providing for “equitable relief” to exclude the razing of a building
without just compensation to the owner to avoid possible constitutional infirmity of the
statute); Schochet v. State, 320 Md. 714, 725-35, 580 A.2d 176, 181-86 (1990) (interpreting
the law criminalizing fellatio as inapplicable to consensual, noncommercial heterosexual
activity in the privacy of the home, thereby avoiding having to pronounce whether applying
the statute to such activity was constitutional); Lucky Stores, Inc. v. Bd. of Appeals, 270 Md.
513, 529, 312 A.2d 758, 767 (1973) (stating that the “words [‘need’ and ‘general
neighborhood’ used in a zoning statute] have received a judicial gloss, sufficiently definite
‘to protect the people against any arbitrary or unreasonable exercise of power’ in zoning
cases” to uphold the constitutionality of the statute), discussing Neuman v. City of Baltimore,
26
251 Md. 92, 246 A.2d 583 (1968); Sanza v. Md. Bd. of Censors, 245 Md. 319, 341, 226 A.2d
317, 329 (1967) (construing a film censorship statute, broad on its face, to apply only to
“films and views to be shown for an admission charge, except when shown by public
associations or institutions which do not operate for profit,” so as to bring the statute within
federal constitutional limits); see also Pack Shack, Inc. v. Howard County, 377 Md. 55, 88,
832 A.2d 170, 190 (1993) (Harrell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).  Moreover,
other states have similarly construed their grandparental visitation statutes to comply with
due process and the dictates of Troxel.  See, e.g., Glidden v. Conley, 820 A.2d 197, 204-05
(Vt. 2003) (reading Vermont’s GVS, which is very similar to that of Maryland, as carrying
with it a parental presumption and requiring a finding of either parental unfitness or special
circumstances or harm to the child to overcome the presumption); Blixt v. Blixt, 774 N.E.2d
1052, 1060 (Mass. 2002) (supplying parental presumption to Massachusetts GVS to preserve
it from facial invalidation), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 1189, 123 S. Ct. 1259, 154 L. Ed. 2d 1022
(2003); McGovern v. McGovern, 33 P.3d 506, 511-12 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2001) (construing
Arizona GVS to be consistent with due process by requiring court to apply rebuttable
parental presumption).
Having construed the Maryland GVS to include the application of the parental
presumption, the statute is saved from per se constitutional infirmity.  Accordingly, we agree
with the Court of Special Appeals on the question of the facial validity of Family Law § 9-
102.
11Halliday v. Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc., 138 Md. App. 136, 169 & n.9, 770 A.2d 1072,
1091-92 & n.9 (2001); Banks v. Iron Hustler Corp., 59 Md. App. 408, 423, 475 A.2d 1243,
1250 (1984) (“Whatever may be our feeling about whether Maryland should continue to
(continued...)
27
2. Parental Unfitness or Exceptional Circumstances
Petitioners also argue that the statute is unconstitutional as applied to them, again for
want of due process.  The Koshkos contend that the trial court and Court of Special Appeals
erred by not requiring the grandparents to demonstrate that the Koshkos were unfit parents
or that exceptional circumstances existed that counsel in favor of grandparental visitation
before the presumption in favor of the wishes of the custodial parents is overcome.
Petitioners marshal the holdings of Troxel and McDermott to support their contention that
the “best interest of the child” language of § 9-102 should be infused with the
unfitness/exceptional circumstances test.  The Court of Special Appeals rejected this
argument on a largely technical ground.  Because McDermott was a custody case, the
intermediate appellate court refused to extend McDermott’s holding that there must be a
threshold finding of parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances before proceeding to the
best interests inquiry.  Koshko, 168 Md. App. at 583-84, 897 A.2d at 882-83.  The court
instead cleaved to Fairbanks, a pre-Troxel grandparental visitation case which did not require
such threshold findings, because Fairbanks was more direct precedent than, and had not been
expressly overruled by, McDermott or other decisions of this Court.  Id.  This course of
action by the Court of Special Appeals, under the principles of stare decisis, was a correct
one.11  We, however, shall consider this point anew.
11(...continued)
adhere to this rule, however, we can neither overrule nor ignore the decisions of our Court
of Appeals.”); see generally Chesapeake & Curtis Bay R.R. Co. v. Richfield Oil Corp., 180
Md. 192, 194, 23 A.2d 677, 678-79 (construing Maryland Constitution Article 4, § 15
regarding the finality of Court of Appeals decisions), cert. denied, 316 U.S. 698, 62 S. Ct.
1297, 86 L. Ed. 1768 (1942).
28
We begin our analysis of this due process argument mindful that visitation is a species
of custody, albeit for a more limited duration.  Beckman, 337 Md. at 703 n.7, 655 A.2d at 908
n.7 (“Visitation, which is considered to be a form of temporary custody, and custody
determinations are generally governed by the same principles.”); Wolinski, 115 Md. App. at
301, 693 A.2d at 38 (acknowledging the similarity of visitation and custody); see also Gestl
v. Frederick, 133 Md. App. 216, 236, 754 A.2d 1087, 1098 (2000) (quoting In re Thompson,
11 S.W.3d 913, 918-19 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1999)) (“To allow the courts to award visitation - a
limited form of custody - to a third person would necessarily impair the parents’ right to
custody and control.”); see generally Taylor v. Taylor, 306 Md. 290, 297, 508 A.2d 964, 967
(1986) (“With respect to physical custody, there is no difference between the rights and
obligations of a parent having temporary custody of a child pursuant to an order of shared
physical custody, and one having temporary custody pursuant to an award of visitation.”);
Jackson v. Fitzgerald, 185 A.2d 724, 726 (D.C. 1962) (“The right of visitation derives from
the right to custody.  The court could not award the plaintiff [grandmother] visitation rights
without impinging on the father’s vested right of custody.”).
The Court in Fairbanks declared that, with regard to substantive due process rights,
“[v]isitation is a considerably less weighty matter than outright custody of a child, and does
12As the Court of Special Appeals noted below, the amount of time the Hainings
would spend with their grandchildren outside the presence and control of the Koshkos
comprised a mere “one percent of the time per calendar quarter.”  Koshko, 168 Md. App. at
584, 897 A.2d at 882.
29
not demand the enhanced protections, embodied in the exceptional circumstances test, that
attend custody awards.”  Fairbanks, 330 Md. at 48, 622 A.2d at 126; see also Wolinski, 115
Md. App. at 305-06, 693 A.2d at 39-40.  The Court of Special Appeals in the present case
drew upon this language in reaching its conclusion that “the intrusions on parental rights are
not comparable” as between custody and visitation.  Koshko, 168 Md. App. at 583-84, 897
A.2d at 882.  Maryland appellate courts thereafter repeated Fairbanks’s refrain, rejecting the
need to demonstrate exceptional circumstances in third party visitation cases.  Maner, 342
Md. at 468, 677 A.2d at 563; Beckman, 337 Md. at 692-93, 655 A.2d at 903; Herrick, 154
Md. App. at 231, 838 A.2d at 1268; Wolinski, 115 Md. App. at 306, 693 A.2d at 40.  The
Court of Special Appeals in the present case also relied on the fact that the Supreme Court
declined the opportunity to declare in Troxel “whether the Due Process Clause requires all
nonparental visitation statutes to include a showing of harm or potential harm to the child as
a condition precedent to granting visitation.”  Koshko, 168 Md. App. at 565, 897 A.2d at 871
(quoting Troxel, 530 U.S. at 73, 120 S. Ct. at 2064).
There is no dispute that the grant or modification of visitation involves a lesser degree
of intrusion on the fundamental right to parent than the assignment of custody. 12  We except
from this notion, however, that, because of this conceptualization, visitation somehow ranks
lower on the “scale of values” such that its determination does not require the application of
13In Zablocki, the U.S. Supreme Court said:
By reaffirming the fundamental character of the right to marry, we do not
mean to suggest that every state regulation which relates in any way to the
incidents of or prerequisites for marriage must be subjected to rigorous
scrutiny. To the contrary, reasonable regulations that do not significantly
interfere with decisions to enter into the marital relationship may legitimately
be imposed.
(continued...)
30
stringent tests as is the case with custody.  Koshko, 168 Md. App. at 584, 897 A.2d at 882.
In other words, although there may be a difference in the degree of intrusion, it is not a
difference of constitutional magnitude.  Visitation, like custody, intrudes upon the
fundamental right of parents to direct the “care, custody, and control” of their children.
Though visitation decisions granting such privileges to third parties may tread more lightly
into the protected grove of parental rights, they tread nonetheless.  As will be shown, infra,
the weight of the footfalls on that territory is sufficiently direct and substantial as to require
rigorous scrutiny.
  In matters implicating state interference with a fundamental right we generally apply
the strict scrutiny standard.  In re Yves S., 373 Md. at 569, 819 A.2d at 1041(quoting
Wolinksi, 115 Md. App. at 301, 693 A.2d at 37) (stating that, in the substantive due process
context, strict scrutiny is applied when a statute affects the curtailment of fundamental
rights).  Despite this general principle, this Court and the Court of Special Appeals
occasionally invoke dicta in Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374, 98 S.Ct 673, 54 L. Ed. 2d 618
(1978)13 and language from a dissent authored by Justice O’Connor in City of Akron v. Akron
13(...continued)
434 U.S. at 386, 98 S. Ct. at 681, quoted by Wolinski, 115 Md. App. at 305-06, 693 A.2d at
39.
31
Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U.S. 416, 462-63, 103 S. Ct. 2481, 2509-10, 76
L. Ed. 2d 687 (1983), as license to reduce the level of scrutiny applied in certain cases
involving state interference with fundamental liberty interests protected by due process.  To
be precise, there exists in precedent a principle of reserving strict scrutiny review only for
cases where fundamental rights have suffered “significant interference”.  Hill v. Fitzgerald,
304 Md. 689, 701, 501 A.2d 27, 33 (1985) (“Under . . . substantive due process analysis
[concerning the right to access to the courts], strict scrutiny will only be invoked in those
cases where laws ‘significantly interfere’ with a fundamental right.”) (emphasis added);
Hornbeck v. Somerset County Bd. of Educ., 295 Md. 597, 458 A.2d 75 (1983) (“[E]ven if
education be deemed a fundamental right in Maryland, strict scrutiny would only be
appropriate if a significant deprivation of that right occurs.”) (emphasis added); Wolinski,
115 Md. App. at 303-05, 693 A.2d at 33-39; see also Attorney General v. Waldron, 289 Md.
683, 711, 426 A.2d 929, 944 (1981) (“The second category of statutes which activate
heightened scrutiny are those which affect ‘important’ personal interests or work a
‘significant interference with liberty or a denial of a benefit vital to the individual.’”)
(quoting LAURENCE TRIBE, AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 1090 (1978) (emphasis
added)).  Nonetheless, because we conclude that the Maryland GVS may work a “direct and
32
substantial” interference with the Koshkos’s fundamental right to parent, we apply strict
scrutiny.  We explain.
It appears that the decisions advancing this “significant interference” test, particularly
Wolinski, tended to minimize the underlying principles informing the test.  The Supreme
Court’s caveat in Zablocki that heightened scrutiny would not be applied to all regulation of
the fundamental right to marry was qualified in a following sentence, which was not quoted
in Wolinski.  The Supreme Court stated that to obtain strict scrutiny of interference with a
fundamental right, the state must “interfere directly and substantially” with that right.
Zablocki, 434 U.S. at 387, 98 S. Ct. at 681.  The Zablocki Court went on to elucidate this
principle of “direct and substantial” interference by distinguishing its holding from another
marriage impediment case, Califano v. Jobst, 434 U.S. 47, 98 S. Ct. 95, 54 L. Ed. 2d 228
(1977).  In Jobst, the Court
upheld sections of the Social Security Act providing, inter alia, for termination
of a dependent child’s benefits upon marriage to an individual not entitled to
benefits under the Act.  As the opinion for the Court expressly noted, the rule
terminating benefits upon marriage was not ‘an attempt to interfere with the
individual’s freedom to make a decision as important as marriage.’  The Social
Security provisions placed no direct legal obstacle in the path of persons
desiring to get married, and . . . there was no evidence that the laws
significantly discouraged, let alone made ‘practically impossible,’ any
marriages.”
Zablocki, 434 U.S. at 387 n.12, 98 S. Ct. at 681 n.12 (quoting Jobst, 434 U.S. at 54, 98 S. Ct.
at 99) (citation omitted).  Because the laws at issue in Jobst presented neither direct nor
substantial interference with the right to marry, the Court upheld the laws under rational basis
33
review.  See Jobst, 434 U.S. at 56, 98 S. Ct. at 100-01.  The Zablocki Court, however, struck
down as a “direct and substantial” intrusion on the right to marry, under strict scrutiny, 434
U.S. at 387-88, 98 S. Ct. at 681-82, a Wisconsin statute which prohibited a class consisting
of noncustodial parents of minor children subject to a support order from marrying absent
a court order, which could only be obtained upon a showing of compliance with their support
obligation and also that the child would not become a public charge.  434 U.S. at 375, 98 S.
Ct. at 675.  In its rationale, the Court said that under the statute
no Wisconsin resident in the affected class may marry in Wisconsin or
elsewhere without a court order, and marriages contracted in violation of the
statute are both void and punishable as criminal offenses.  Some of those in the
affected class, like appellee, will never be able to obtain the necessary court
order, because they either lack the financial means to meet their support
obligations or cannot prove that their children will not become public charges.
These persons are absolutely prevented from getting married.  Many others,
able in theory to satisfy the statute’s requirements, will be sufficiently
burdened by having to do so that they will in effect be coerced into forgoing
their right to marry.  And even those who can be persuaded to meet the
statute’s requirements suffer a serious intrusion into their freedom of choice
in an area in which we have held such freedom to be fundamental.
Zablocki, 434 U.S. at 387, 98 S. Ct. at 681.
Because the difference between the directness and substantiality of the impediments
to marriage discussed in the Jobst and Zablocki opinions is critical, we should consider more
closely the holdings.  In Jobst, the challenged law eliminated a dependent child’s benefits
when the parent married a person ineligible for such benefits.  The Court reasoned that this
loss of benefits was not a direct bar to entering matrimony, but rather an incidental
consequence of it.  Furthermore, whatever deterrent effect the law may have had on marriage
14Koshko, 168 Md. App. at 583-84, 897 A.2d at 882; Wolinski, 115 Md. App. at 306,
693 A.2d at 40.  Wolinski further suggests that it is that the parental presumption in visitation
cases is “weaker than the presumption that operates in custody and adoption disputes . . . .”
115 Md. App. at 317, 693 A.2d at 45.
34
was not substantial enough truly to dissuade couples from marrying, including the individual
challenging the law.  In Zablocki, by contrast, the assailed statute required those in the
designated class wishing to marry first to seek permission from a court upon certain
affirmative showings that, effectively, may have been impossible to demonstrate.  Thus, this
requirement placed an impermissible direct legal obstacle between the members of the class
and the fundamental right to marry.  The Court further noted that even for those members of
the class capable of enduring the expense and tribulation of making the required showings,
the requirement that they were required to do so at all was an unacceptable imposition on the
right of choice with respect to marriage.
Thus, in the decision whether to apply strict scrutiny, it is the underlying notion of
“direct and substantial” interference that should guide and inform courts on the notion of the
“significance” of an interference.  The key inquiry centers on the manner and extent to which
the right is interfered with by the state.  That is, in any given context, is the right subject to
“direct and substantial” interference?  The sentiment expressed by Maryland courts
heretofore, instigated no doubt by the language in Fairbanks, that visitation matters deserve
less scrutiny than custody matters is, upon reflection, incorrect.14  We shall not perpetuate this
notion further, particularly in the wake of the Troxel Court’s strong affirmation of parental
15The concept of family privacy finds its expression in the due process right of parents
to the “care, custody, and control” of their children.  In re Blessen H., 392 Md. 684, 693, 898
A.2d 980, 985-86 (2006); In re Yve S., 373 Md. 551, 565-68, 819 A.2d 1030, 1038-40
(2003).  The right to privacy relating to choices in the realm of “family life” is deeply
embedded in Maryland and federal constitutional jurisprudence.  In Neville v. State we relied
on the general right to privacy in matters pertaining to the family and the home as noted in
Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton.  290 Md. 364, 375,  430 A.2d 570, 575 (1981) (citing Slaton,
413 U.S. 49, 65, 93 S. Ct. 2628, 2639, 37 L. Ed. 2d 446, 462 (1973).  In Department of
Social Services v. Clark, we recognized the Supreme Court precedent of Santosky v. Kramer
for the proposition that “freedom of personal choice in matters of family life is a fundamental
liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.”  296 Md. 190, 196, 461 A.2d 1077,
1080 (1983) (citing Santosky, 455 U.S. 745, 753, 102 S. Ct. 1388, 1394, 71 L. Ed. 2d 599,
606 (1982)) (emphasis added) (citations omitted).
35
rights in the grandparental visitation context.  For the purposes of constitutional analysis,
parental autonomy is encroached upon equally by visitation matters as it is with custody
disputes when the state interference is “direct and substantial”.
The Supreme Court’s decision in the consolidated cases titled under Lyng v. Castillo,
477 U.S. 635, 106 S. Ct. 2727, 91 L. Ed. 2d 527 (1986), illustrates this “direct and
substantial” principle in another familial privacy case.15  Castillo presented an equal
protection challenge to an amendment of the Food Stamp Act changing the definition of
“household” for benefit amount purposes so as to exclude extended family members or
groups of unrelated persons living together unless those persons purchased food and prepared
meals together.  477 U.S. at 636, 106 S. Ct. at 2728.  The challenge was mounted by
individuals who bought and prepared food as separate groups who would, as a result of the
amendment to the Act, either lose entirely or experience a reduction in their food stamp
benefits.  Castillo, 477 U.S. at 637, 106 S. Ct. at 2728-29.  The challengers argued that the
16The Court characterized the specific right implicated in Lyng v. Castillo as the
liberty interest in setting “family living arrangements”.  477 U.S. 635, 637, 106 S. Ct. 2727,
2728-29 (1986).  The Court of Special Appeals refers to this right as the “‘family life’ liberty
interest”.  L.F.M. v. Dep’t of Social Servs., 67 Md. App. 379, 386, 507 A.2d 1151, 1154
(1986).
36
amendment unconstitutionally infringed on familial privacy16 by forcing the extended family
members or unrelated individuals to either move apart from their confederates in order to
reinstate the previous benefit levels allotted to them or to continue to live together at the
sufferance of diminished or terminated benefits.  Id.  The Supreme Court upheld the
amendment under rational basis review.  Castillo, 477 U.S. at 639, 106 S. Ct. at 2730.  In
support of its decision not to apply strict scrutiny, the Court applied Zablocki because the
amendment did not impose “direct and substantial interference” with the families’ privacy
rights.  Castillo, 477 U.S. at 638, 106 S. Ct. at 2729.  The Court explained:
The “household” definition does not order or prevent any group of persons
from dining together.  Indeed, in the overwhelming majority of cases it
probably has no effect at all.  It is exceedingly unlikely that close relatives
would choose to live apart simply to increase their allotment of food stamps,
for the cost of separate housing would almost certainly exceed the incremental
value of the additional stamps.
Castillo, 477 U.S. at 638, 106 S. Ct. at 2729.  The amendment simply presented a choice of
options to families, attached to which were divergent consequences; it mandated nothing.
Any adverse consequences embodied by the decrease or termination of food stamps was
attributable to the choices of the families and was, thus, incidental and indirect in nature.
Further, in the likely event that the amendment did not deter the families from living
17A similar case arose in the term following the Castillo decision dealing with a
Deficit Reduction Act provision that changed welfare rules to require single mothers to
include in their family unit for benefit allotment purposes children for whom support
payments were being made.  Bowen v. Gilliard, 483 U.S. 587, 589-90, 107 S. Ct. 3008, 3011,
97 L. Ed. 2d 485 (1987).  Litigants challenged the constitutionality of the change, which
reduced the family unit’s benefit amount if the child subject to the support award stayed in
the household, thus interfering with family privacy.  The Supreme Court upheld the provision
under rational basis review after stating that just because “some families may decide to
modify their living arrangements in order to avoid the effect of the amendment, does not
transform the amendment into an act whose design and direct effect are to ‘intrud[e] on
choices concerning family living arrangements.’”  Bowen, 483 U.S. at 601-02, 107 S. Ct. at
3017-18.  In a footnote, the Bowen Court defended the legislation’s “indirect effect” of
inspiring some families to live apart by noting that many welfare provisions may have
“unintended consequences” that do not call into question their constitutionality.  483 U.S. at
602, 107 S. Ct. at 3017.  The challenges to parental autonomy created by the Maryland GVS
are not unintended.  To the contrary, the law’s only logical purpose is to offer grandparents
the opportunity to dispute a parent’s decision regarding visitation.
37
together, the financial detriment accompanying the choice would be eclipsed by the cost of
maintaining two or more separate residences.  The Food Stamp Act amendment in Castillo
and the statute terminating dependent children’s benefits in Jobst share a critical
commonality: they both affected indirect impositions on fundamental rights and, accordingly,
were not subject to strict scrutiny.17  We are unwilling to say the same about the Maryland
GVS called into question before us in the present case.
The Maryland GVS has an unmistakable and intended direct effect on the fundamental
right to parent.  Family Law § 9-102 authorizes grandparents to institute, and courts to
resolve, challenges to parents’ decisions concerning to whom their children will be exposed
and for what duration by way of visitation.  Although the statute does not bar absolutely
parents from exercising their rights, as did the law struck down in Zablocki, the GVS does
38
more than set out dispassionately the consequences of one parental decision or another.
Rather, the statute permits grandparents seeking the initiation or increase of visitation with
their grandchildren to intercede directly in parental determinations of their children’s best
interests.  Instead of merely creating a consequence of the parents’ exercise of their right to
control their child, the statute exposes the very parental decision-making process relating to
the exercise of that right to the challenge of disgruntled grandparents.  As in Zablocki, only
a favorable court order finally resolves such a dispute and affirms the validity of the
Koshkos’ exercise of their fundamental right.
This direct interference is also substantial in nature.  Although, as we previously
acknowledged in this opinion, the degree of intrusion upon parental rights created by
visitation matters is less than that of custody matters, the intrusion perpetrated may be
sufficiently substantial to offend due process.  The cost of two and one-half years of
litigation; the forced interaction between the feuding Koshkos and Hainings through the
vehicle of court-ordered counseling; the compromise of the Koshkos’ parental autonomy; and
the time, however short, that the children will be outside of the “care, custody, and control”
of the Koshkos are disruptions imposed by the Circuit Court’s visitation order.  Maner, 342
Md. at 470677 A.2d at 564 (“[W]e have recognized that judicial supervision of familial
relationships is disruptive to the lives of children.”) (citing In re Adoption No. 10941, 335
Md. 99, 120, 642 A.2d 201, 212 (1994)); Fairbanks, 330 Md. at 50, 622 A.2d at 127 (“The
39
trial court should also be alert to the psychological toll the visitation dispute itself might
exact on a child in the midst of contesting adults.”).
Having determined that the GVS imposes a direct and substantial interference upon
the Koshkos’ exercise of their parental rights with respect to the visitation with their children
by the Hainings, we are bound to apply strict judicial scrutiny.  Under strict scrutiny, a statute
may be validated only if it is deemed to be suitably, or narrowly, tailored to further a
compelling state interest.  Ehrlich v. Perez,  394 Md. 691, 717, 908 A.2d 1220, 1244 (2006);
Montrose Christian Sch. Corp. v. Walsh, 363 Md. 565, 586, 770 A.2d 111, 123 (2001);
Murphy v. Edmonds, 325 Md. 342, 356, 601 A.2d 102, 109 (1992); Broadwater v. State, 306
Md. 597, 603, 510 A.2d 583, 585 (1986).  There can be no legitimate debate as to the
sufficiency of the State’s compelling interests here, chief of which is the overarching role as
parens patriae to ensure the well-being of Maryland’s children.  See Shurupoff, 372 Md. at
657-58, 814 A.2d at 554.  The GVS provides a means for grandparents to play a vital role in
the development and happiness of a child’s life when circumstances are such that court action
is warranted and needed to enforce that role properly.  See McDermott, 385 Md. at 430, 869
A.2d at 816 (“Grandparents’ contributions do not go unnoticed and their efforts likely accrue
to the benefit of the grandchildren.”); Frase v. Barnhart, 379 Md. 100, 122-23, 840 A.2d
114, 127 (2003) (“In the plurality Opinion joined by three other members of the Court,
Justice O’Connor acknowledged the important role that grandparents and other third parties
often play in children’s lives . . . .”) (citing Troxel, 530 U.S. at 64, 120 S. Ct. at 2059, 147
40
L. Ed. 2d at 56); see also Wolinski, 115 Md. App. at 317, 693 A.2d at 45 (discussing “the
State’s interest in fostering beneficial grandparent-grandchild relationships.”).  The State’s
interest in encouraging the salutary contributions grandparents make to the lives of their
grandchildren is clearly a compelling one.  There is, however, reason to doubt the narrow
tailoring of the statute to vindicate the State’s interest.
As we have already discussed, the GVS permits a direct and substantial burden on the
exercise of parental rights concerning the control of their children.  The chief safeguard in
place to protect parental rights in a grandparental visitation dispute is the presumption
favoring a parental decision, which first must be rebutted before any inquiry into the child’s
best interests.  The parental presumption we engrafted onto the GVS saves it from per se
invalidation under Troxel, but it is not sufficient, by itself, to preserve the constitutionality
of the statute.  Although the presumption elevates a Maryland court’s decision above the
“simple disagreement between the [trial court] and the [parents] concerning [their] children’s
best interests,” disparaged by the Supreme Court in Troxel, 530 U.S. at 72, 120 S. Ct. at
2063, it does not do enough to protect parents from undue interference with their rights.  Fit
parents, who are presumed to act in their children’s best interests, McDermott, 385 Md. at
422, 869 A.2d at 811 (citing Parham, 442 U.S. at 602, 99 S. Ct. at 2504), nonetheless may
be hailed into court to defend their decisions absent any showing that they are unfit and
without any requirement that the grandparents challenging the parental decision plead any
exceptional circumstances that may tend to override the parental presumption.  A proceeding
18See Troxel, 530 U.S. at 68-69, 120 S. Ct. at 2061 (“[S]o long as a parent adequately
cares for his or her children (i.e. is fit), there will normally be no reason for the state to inject
itself into the private realm of the family to further question the ability of that parents to
make the best decisions concerning the rearing of that parent’s children.”); see also Maner,
342 Md. at 470, 677 A.2d at 564; Fairbanks, 330 Md. at 50, 622 A.2d at 127.
41
that may result in a court mandating that a parent’s children spend time with a third party,
outside of the parent’s supervision and against the parent’s wishes, no matter how temporary
or modifiable, necessitates stronger protections of the parental right.  The importance of
parental autonomy is too great and our reluctance to interfere with the private matters of the
family too foreboding,18 whether it be in matters of custody or visitation, to allow parental
decision-making to remain that vulnerable to frustration by third parties.
As we noted in McDermott, “the constitutional right is the ultimate determinative
factor” in third party custody cases where parents are fit and no extraordinary circumstances
are present.  McDermott, 385 Md. at 418, 869 A.2d at 808.  Thus, if third parties wish to
disturb the judgment of a parent, those third parties must come before our courts possessed
of at least prima facie evidence that the parents are either unfit or that there are exceptional
circumstances warranting the relief sought before the best interests standard is engaged.  This
scheme, applied to the visitation context, would supply the safeguards lacking to tailor
suitably the GVS to the State’s interests by ensuring that parental decisions entitled to
deference are not unduly placed in jeopardy by less significant familial disputes.  The
Fairbanks Court, in refusing to impose an unfitness/exceptional circumstances test, relied
solely upon the lack of any statutory or legislative express direction to do so.  330 Md. at 47-
19Other courts have construed their GVS provisions similarly.  See, e.g., Richburg v.
Richburg, 895 So.2d 311, 318 (Ala. Civ. App. 2004) (requiring that grandparents show by
“clear and convincing evidence that the child would be substantially harmed by the father’s
decision to deny them set visitation”); Moriarty v. Bradt, 827 A.2d 203, 223 (N.J. 2003)
(holding that for the New Jersey GVS to be narrowly tailored to the state’s compelling
parens patriae interest in the well-being of children, courts must impose a burden on
(continued...)
42
48, 622 A.2d 125-26.  In a post-Troxel world, however, we must revisit this analysis where
the Constitution requires greater protection of the interests involved.
The facial provisions of the GVS require merely a “non-constitutional” best interests
of the child inquiry.  Id.  We already have shown that this standard, which is the proper
crucible for resolving disputes between fit parents, is inadequate, by itself, to protect the vital
liberty interests implicated in disputes between fit parents and third parties over the
upbringing of children.  McDermott, 385 Md. at 353-54, 869 A.2d at 770 (“Where the
dispute is between a fit parent and a private third party, however, both parties do not begin
on equal footing in respect to ‘care, custody, and control’ of the children.  . . .  The arguments
and outcome of the instant case [requiring a finding of parental unfitness or exceptional
circumstances before the child’s best interests standard is employed] in no way alter the ‘best
interests of the child’ standard that governs courts’ assessments of disputes between fit
parents involving visitation or custody.”).  To preserve fundamental parental liberty interests,
we now apply a gloss to the Maryland GVS requiring a threshold showing of either parental
unfitness or exceptional circumstances indicating that the lack of grandparental visitation has
a significant deleterious effect upon the children who are the subject of the petition.19  We
19(...continued)
grandparents “establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that visitation is necessary to
avoid harm to the child”), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 1177, 124 S. Ct. 1408, 158 L. Ed. 2d 78
(2004); Glidden v. Conley, 820 A.2d 197, 204-05 (Vt. 2003) (requiring a finding of either
parental unfitness or special circumstances or harm to the child to overcome the parental
presumption); Camburn v. Smith, 586 S.E.2d 565, 579-80 (S.C. 2003) (“In sum, parents and
grandparents are not on an equal footing in a contest over visitation.  Before visitation may
be awarded over a parent’s objection, one of two evidentiary hurdles must be met: the parent
must be shown to be unfit by clear and convincing evidence, or there must be evidence of
compelling circumstances to overcome the presumption that the parental decision is in the
child's best interest.”); In re Pensom, 126 S.W.3d 251, 256 (Tex. App. 2003) (“[W]e hold
that in order to satisfy the ‘best interest of the child’ prong of the Grandparent Access
Statute, a grandparent must overcome the presumption that a fit parent acts in the best
interest of his or her child.  To overcome this presumption, a grandparent has the burden to
prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, either that the parent is not fit, or that denial of
access by the grandparent would significantly impair the child’s physical health or emotional
well-being.”) (footnote omitted); Roth v. Weston, 789 A.2d 431, 445 (Conn. 2002) (finding
that “an allegation, along with proof thereof, that the parent’s decision regarding visitation
will cause the child to suffer real and substantial emotional harm likewise presents a
compelling state interest that will permit interference with parental rights, provided the
petitioner has established a parent-like relationship with the child”); Blixt v. Blixt, 774 N.E.2d
1052, 1060 (Mass. 2002) (holding that “the grandparents must allege and prove that the
failure to grant visitation will cause the child significant harm by adversely affecting the
child’s health, safety, or welfare”), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 1189, 123 S. Ct. 1259, 154 L. Ed.
2d 1022 (2003); In re Application of Herbst, 971 P.2d 395, 399 (Okla.1998) (“To reach the
issue of a child's best interests, there must be a requisite showing of harm, or threat of harm
. . . .”); Williams v. Williams, 501 S.E.2d 417, 418 (Va. 1998) (“‘[B]efore visitation can be
ordered over the objection of the child’s parents, a court must find an actual harm to the
child’s health or welfare without such visitation.  A court reaches consideration of the ‘best
interests’ standard in determining visitation only after it finds harm if visitation is not
ordered.’”) (quotations omitted); Brooks v. Parkerson, 454 S.E.2d 769, 773 n. 5 (Ga.)
(“[T]he ‘best interest of the child’ standard does not come into play to permit interference
with the custody and control of the child, over parental objection, unless and until there is a
showing of harm to the child without that interference.”), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 942, 116 S.
Ct. 377, 133 L. Ed. 2d 301 (1995); Litz v. Bennum, 888 P.2d 438, 440 (Nev. 1995) (“We
conclude that the parental preference policy is a rebuttable presumption that must be
overcome either by a showing that the parent is unfit or other extraordinary circumstances.”);
(continued...)
43
19(...continued)
Hawk v. Hawk, 855 S.W.2d 573, 580 (Tenn.1993) (requiring “an initial showing of harm .
. . before the state may intervene to determine the ‘best interests of the child’”).
20Ours is not the first state high court to import the unfitness or exceptional
circumstances test into the third party visitation realm from third party custody jurisprudence.
See, e.g., Moriarty, 827 A.2d at 220-22.
44
do so under the principle of constitutional avoidance previously invoked in this opinion to
engraft onto the GVS a parental presumption.  In re James D., 295 Md. at 327, 455 A.2d at
972 (citing Deems, 247 Md. at 113, 231 A.2d at 524); Meekins, 50 Md. at 39-40 (1878); see
also Clark, 543 U.S. at 382, 125 S. Ct. at 725.
Our adoption of the parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances test borrowed
from the realm of custody cases should not provoke much upset in the way these types of
proceedings unfold.20  This is owing, in part, to the reality that the standards and processes
relevant to all manner of custody and visitation determinations are nearly identical.  In
Boswell we recognized the homogeneity between custody and visitation when we noted that
“the case law discussed in this opinion concerning custody determinations, and the principles
governing such situations, are equally applicable to visitation proceedings.”  352 Md. at 236,
721 A.2d at 677.  Thus, it was comme il faut (fitting or proper) for us to state that the best
interest of the child standard is applied in the discretion of the trial judge as the principal
consideration in both custody and visitation proceedings.  Boswell, 352 Md. at 219, 721 A.2d
at 669.  This common application of standards has not been confined to the initial assignment
of custody or visitation, but also has extended to the modification of both.  The Court of
21We say “conclusively” because, as the Court in McDermott v. Dougherty, 385 Md.
320, 418-19, 869 A.2d 751, 808-09 (2005) noted, the threshold parental unfitness or
exceptional circumstances test was the prevailing standard in Maryland third party custody
cases (along with a majority of states) prior to Shurupoff v. Vockroth, 372 Md. 639, 814 A.2d
543 (2003).  As the Court then put it, the McDermott decision “adopt[ed] for Maryland, if
we [had] not already done so, the majority position.”  385 Md. at 418-19, 869 A.2d at 808-
09.
45
Special Appeals indicated as much in McMahon v. Piazze, where the court noted that the
“material change in circumstances” standard is applied in actions seeking the modification
of both custody and visitation.  162 Md. App. 588, 596, 875 A.2d 807, 812 (2005).  Further,
identical tests are applied in instances where a change is sought in either custody or visitation
due to an apprehension of potential or actual harm to the child.  Boswell, 352 Md. at 225, 721
A.2d at 672 (indicating that the best interests of the child standard is applied concurrently
with an adverse impact test, whereby a change is granted only upon a showing of actual
emotional or physical harm to the child).  Now that we conclusively21 have stated in
McDermott that parental unfitness and exceptional circumstances shall be threshold
considerations in third party custody determinations, it is appropriate that we now also apply
those considerations in third party visitation disputes.
We are aware that the plurality opinion in Troxel does not compel our holding in this
regard in the present case.  530 U.S. at 73, 120 S. Ct. at 2064.  The result reached here
illustrates the notion that the extent of protection bestowed upon liberty interests recognized
as being enshrined within the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution does not dictate necessarily the full compliment of safeguards extended to
22Our precedent states clearly that the Maryland and Federal due process provisions
have been read “in pari materia”.  Pickett v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 365 Md. 67, 77, 775
A.2d 1218, 1224 (2001); Pitsenberger v. Pitsenberger, 287 Md. 20, 27, 410 A.2d 1052, 1056
(1980); Allied Am. Mut. Fire Ins. Co. v. Comm'r of Motor Vehicles, 219 Md. 607, 615-16,
150 A.2d 421, 426-27 (1959).  This principle of reading the provisions in a like manner does
not, however, reduce our analysis to a mere echo of the prevailing Fourteenth Amendment
jurisprudence.  Aero Motors, Inc. v. Motor Vehicle Admin., 274 Md. 567, 587, 337 A.2d 685,
699 (1975) (“Although Art. [24] of the Maryland Declaration of Rights has long ‘been
equated’ with the ‘due process’ clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by judicial construction
and application, the two provisions are not synonymous.”); see also William J. Brennan, Jr.,
State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights, 90 HARV. L. REV. 489, 491
(1977) (“[S]tate courts cannot rest when they have afforded their citizens the full protections
of the federal Constitution. State constitutions, too, are a font of individual liberties, their
protections often extending beyond those required by the Supreme Court's interpretation of
federal law. The legal revolution which has brought federal law to the fore must not be
allowed to inhibit the independent protective force of state law--for without it, the full
realization of our liberties cannot be guaranteed.”).  We have not hesitated, where deemed
appropriate, to offer a different interpretation of the Maryland provision.  For examples, see
Dua v. Comcast Cable of Maryland, Incorporated, 370 Md. 604, 621, 805 A.2d 1061, 1071
(2003) (cataloguing cases).  See also Borchardt v. State, 367 Md. 91, 175, 786 A.2d 631, 681
(2001) (Raker, J., dissenting) (“Although this Court has generally interpreted Article 24 in
pari materia with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, we have interpreted
it more broadly in instances where fundamental fairness demanded that we do so.”).  Judge
Raker’s dissent in Borchardt cited some examples in the criminal context, such as placing
stricter limits on prosecutorial discretion to enter nolle prosequi and the optional merger of
criminal offenses.  Id.  We have also read Maryland’s due process clause more broadly than
the federal constitution in granting the right to counsel, see Rutherford v. Rutherford, 296
Md. 347, 358, 363, 464 A.2d 228, 234, 237 (1983), cited in Das v. Das, 133 Md. App. 1, 28,
754 A.2d 441, 456 (2000), and the protection from self-incrimination, Choi v. State, 316 Md.
529, 535 n. 3, 560 A.2d 1108, 1111 n. 3 (1989).
46
liberty interests available under the Maryland due process analog found in Article 24 of the
Maryland Declaration of Rights.22
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the Court of Special Appeals in accordance with
our holding that there must be a finding of either parental unfitness or exceptional
23In affected cases pending at the time this opinion is filed, where appropriate, courts
may allow amendments to pleadings or the presentation of additional evidence in light of the
holdings announced here.  In cases filed after this opinion, the petitioners, in order to avert
or overcome a motion to dismiss their petition, must allege a sufficient factual predicate in
the petition so as to present a prima facie case of unfitness or exceptional circumstances, as
well as invoking the best interest standard.  See Patton v. United States of America Rugby
Football Union, 381 Md. 627, 635, 851 A.2d 566, 570 (2004) (quoting Valentine v. On
Target, Inc., 353 Md. 544, 548-49, 727 A.2d 947, 949 (1999) (“The granting of a motion to
dismiss is proper when, even if the facts and allegations as set forth in the complaint were
proven to be true, the complaint would nevertheless fail to state a claim upon which relief
could be granted.”) (citations omitted)).
At any evidentiary hearing on a petition, the petitioners must produce evidence to
(continued...)
47
circumstances demonstrating the current or future detriment to the child, absent visitation
from his or her grandparents, as a prerequisite to application of the best interests analysis.
Accordingly, we overrule the portions of Fairbanks, Maner, Beckman, Herrick, and Wolinski
that are inconsistent with this holding.
Because we have decided that the GVS was unconstitutionally applied to the Koshkos
in the absence of a threshold finding of parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances, this
case must be remanded to the Circuit Court for further proceedings consistent with our
opinion.  Although this may have the unfortunate consequence of extending the course of this
litigation, it would be unfair for us to assess whether the current record could meet the newly
announced threshold requirement of parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances, as the
Hainings had no reason to believe that they were required to plead or adduce any evidence
in this regard.  Moreover, the trial court could not have foreseen reasonably that such a
requirement would be declared by the Court.23
23(...continued)
establish their prima facie case on the issue of either parental unfitness or exceptional
circumstances as well as evidence sufficient to tip the scales of the best interests balancing
test in their favor.  We appreciate that there may be circumstances where evidence proffered
for the satisfaction of a threshold element also may have relevance in the determination of
the best interest standard.  We do not intend to foster a “trial within a trial.”  At the end of
the day, petitioners, in order to be successful, must shoulder the burdens to adduce at least
a prima facie case on both the unfitness/exceptional circumstances standard and the best
interests standard.
48
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF SPECIAL
APPEALS REVERSED; CASE REMANDED
TO THAT COURT WITH DIRECTIONS TO
REVERSE 
THE 
JUDGMENT 
OF 
THE
CIRCU IT 
COURT 
FO R 
BAL TIMORE
COUNTY AND TO REMAND THE CASE TO
THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR FURTHER
PROCEEDINGS CONSISTENT WITH THIS
OPINION; COSTS IN THIS COURT AND IN
THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS TO BE
PAID BY RESPONDENTS.
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND
No. 35
September Term, 2006
_________________________________________
GLEN KOSHKO, et ux.
v.
JOHN HAINING, et ux.
__________________________________________
Bell, C.J.
       
Raker
Wilner
Cathell
Harrell
Greene
Eldridge, John C. (Retired,
Specially  Assigned),
                  JJ.
__________________________________________
Dissenting Opinion by Eldridge, J.
_________________________________________
Filed:   January 12, 2007
Eldridge, J., dissenting:
While I agree with the Court that Maryland Code (1984, 2006 Repl. Vol.), § 9-
102, is not facially unconstitutional, I disagree with the remainder of the Court’s
opinion.  While the opinion states that the Court is not principally relying on Troxel v.
Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 L.Ed. 49 (2000), the Court actually places
a great deal of reliance on Justice O’Connor’s opinion in Troxel.  That opinion,
however, was not an opinion of the Supreme Court and does not appear to reflect the
views of a majority of the Supreme Court.  Troxel is certainly not a sufficient basis for
overruling several prior opinions by this Court. 
McDermott v. Dougherty, 385 Md. 320, 869 A.2d 751 (2005), on which the
majority also relies, was not a visitation case, did not involve § 9-102 of the Family
Law Article, and is quite distinguishable.  Moreover, if I had sat in the McDermott
case, I would have joined Judge Wilner’s concurring opinion.