Although child protection litigation is emotionally and financially draining, we are more and more obtaining results from the courts which benefit young children. Legal custody confers the right and responsibility to make major decisions concerning the child, except with respect to specified decisions as set forth by the court or the parties in the final judgment or order. Major decisions include, but are not limited to, decisions regarding consent to marry, consent to enter military service, consent to obtain a motor vehicle operator's license, authorization for nonemergency health care and choice of school and religion. As between parents and grandparents, a parent is entitled to custody of his or her child unless the parent is either unfit or unable adequately to care for the child or there are compelling reasons for awarding custody to a grandparent. Compelling reasons include abandonment, persistent neglect of parental responsibilities, extended disruption of parental custody, or other similar extraordinary circumstances that would drastically affect the welfare of the child.
Children often form close bonds with people other than their biological or adoptive parents.
A grandparent will in many cases be a primary parent-figure in the child's life. Sometimes parents have problems such as alcoholism, drug addiction, mental or physical illness, poor judgment, or immaturity, which prevent them from caring properly for their children. Grandparents often step in to protect and nurture their grandchildren. Grandparents had no standing to ask a court for visitation with the child, even when preserving the child's relationship with his or her grandparents was in the child's best interest. The two-part test, however, leaves some children's relationships with their grandparents vulnerable when the parents refuse to allow contact under circumstances where there is no underlying court action.