Opinion ID: 2576303
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Third Party Visitation

Text: ¶ 49 Carvin alternatively sought third party visitation pursuant to RCW 26.10.160(3). Our decision today, holding that Carvin has standing to petition for a determination of de facto parentage, may render this alternative argument moot. However, if she is unsuccessful in her petition for de facto parentage, our recent decision in In re Parentage of C.A.M.A makes clear that Washington's current third party visitation statutes are unconstitutional and inoperative and thus unavailable as an alternative ground on which to seek visitation. ¶ 50 Carvin concedes that this court, in In re Custody of Smith, held that RCW 26.10.160 was facially unconstitutional. Corr. Suppl. Br. of Resp't at 20. However, Carvin asserts that the United States Supreme Court's review of Smith in Troxel, which held that section .160(3) was unconstitutional only as applied in that case, essentially resurrected the third party visitation statute. Id. at 20-22 (asserting that  Troxel makes clear that RCW 26.10.160(3) does not necessarily offend due process). However, since she made this argument, this court issued In re Parentage of C.A.M.A., which controls the result here. ¶ 51 At issue in C.A.M.A. was the constitutionality of the visitation provided under RCW 26.09.240, which we held facially unconstitutional in violation of Smith. In doing so, the court reaffirmed the holding in Smith. ... Smith required that a grandparent (or other third party seeking visitation) must show that denial of visitation would result in harm to the child before a court could order visitation over the objections of a fit parent. It is not within the province of the state to make significant decisions concerning the custody of children merely because it could make a `better' decision [than the parent]. C.A.M.A., 154 Wash.2d at 61, 109 P.3d 405 (alteration in original) (quoting Smith, 137 Wash.2d at 20, 969 P.2d 21). In C.A.M.A., this court struck RCW 26.09.240 in its entirety. This court held that in order to comply with the Smith requirement that harm to the child must be demonstrated to order visitation over the objection of a fit parent, courts would be required to apply a `harm to the child' standard as opposed to or in addition to the current best interests of the child standard. C.A.M.A., 154 Wash.2d at 68, 109 P.3d 405. Because we concluded in Smith that we will not read qualifications into [a] statute which are not there, 137 Wash.2d at 12, 969 P.2d 21, we invalidated RCW 26.09.240 in its entirety. C.A.M.A., 154 Wash.2d at 69, 109 P.3d 405. ¶ 52 In applying RCW 26.10.160(3), the Court of Appeals in this case discussed only the Troxel case and performed no analysis of this court's holding in Smith. While simply following Troxel's narrower holding, Smith's invalidation may have been debatable, following this court's holding in C.A.M.A., it is clear that Washington's third party visitation statutes, RCW 26.09.240 and RCW 26.10.160(3), are facially unconstitutional. The effect of holding a statute facially unconstitutional is to render the statute totally inoperative. City of Redmond v. Moore, 151 Wash.2d 664, 669, 91 P.3d 875 (2004). As such, based on our holdings in Smith and C.A.M.A., until the legislature amends the relevant statutes, there exists no statutory right to third party visitation in Washington. Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeals on this issue.