Opinion ID: 1405279
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Grandparent Visitation Cases

Text: Cases concerning the constitutionality of grandparent visitation statutes are also instructive as they address the constitutional legitimacy of intrusions into parental rights. The majority mentions only two such cases, Hawk v. Hawk, 855 S.W.2d 573 (Tenn.1993), and Brooks v. Parkerson, 265 Ga. 189, 454 S.E.2d 769, cert. denied, 516 U.S. 942, 116 S.Ct. 377, 133 L.Ed.2d 301 (1995). See Majority op. at 30, 31. Hawk was decided on state constitutional grounds. Hawk, 855 S.W.2d at 582. See also Beagle v. Beagle, 678 So.2d 1271, 1275-76 (Fla.1996) (holding Florida's grandparent visitation statute violative of the enhanced privacy rights found in art. 1, § 23 of the Florida Constitution, which provides privacy protections broader in scope than the federal constitution). Given the state constitutional bases of the Hawk and Beagle holdings, they are of little precedential or persuasive value here since the Washington Constitution (art. 1, § 7) affords no greater protection than the minimum protection conveyed by the federal constitution on matters other than search and seizure. See Ramm v. City of Seattle, 66 Wash.App. 15, 27, 830 P.2d 395 (1992). Brooks adopted the reasoning of Hawk but declared Georgia's grandparent visitation statute violative of both the state and federal constitutions. The Brooks majority, relying on termination cases, premised its holding on the notion that the extent of the intrusion upon parental rights to custody and control was irrelevant. No infringement of such rights, regardless of how small, was permissible absent a showing of harm to the child. Brooks, 265 Ga. at 194 n. 6, 454 S.E.2d 769. We rejected such approach in Sumey. Indeed, our pronouncements on parens patriae in Sumey are more in harmony with the Brooks dissent which chided the majority there for its restrictive view, opining: Following Tennessee's lead, the majority maintains that the State's authority to assert itself as parens patriae is permissible only where the health or welfare of a child is threatened. Majority, p. 193 [454 S.E.2d 769]. However, in Georgia, the courts have acted as parens patraie when considering such nonthreatening items as a child's name change, and a purported father's petition of legitimation. In Georgia, the exercise of the parens patriae power has always had as its paramount consideration the best interests of the child, and its exercise has become synonymous with the child's best interests and welfare. Brooks, 265 Ga. at 199-200, 454 S.E.2d 769 (Benham, Presiding J., dissenting). The majority cites only the minority view and fails to mention cases such as King v. King, 828 S.W.2d 630 (Ky.), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 941, 113 S.Ct. 378, 121 L.Ed.2d 289 (1992), upholding Kentucky's grandparent visitation statute against a federal constitutional challenge. See also Hawk, 855 S.W.2d at 577 n. 1 ([t]he United States Supreme Court was asked to review the King case on a right-to-privacy theory and declined. The Supreme Court has never entertained a case involving the right to visitation of grandparents or other third parties. (Citation omitted)). In fact, the majority of cases in the United States have upheld grandparent visitation statutes. In upholding the constitutionality of Utah's Grandparent Visitation Statute, the Utah Court of Appeals noted: the vast majority of courts that have addressed the constitutionality of grandparent visitation statutes authorizing visitation if in the best interest of the child, have upheld those statutes as constitutional. See Sketo v. Brown, 559 So.2d 381, 382 (Fla.App.1990); Bailey v. Menzie, 542 N.E.2d 1015, 1020 (Ind.App.1989); Spradling v. Harris, 13 Kan.App.2d 595, 778 P.2d 365, 368 (1989); King v. King, 828 S.W.2d 630, 631-32 (Ky.), cert. denied, [506 U.S. 941], 113 S.Ct. 378, 121 L.Ed.2d 289 (1992); Herndon v. Tuhey, 857 S.W.2d 203, 208 (Mo.1993) (en banc); Roberts v. Ward, 126 N.H. 388, 493 A.2d 478, 481 (1985); People ex rel. Sibley v. Sheppard, 54 N.Y.2d 320, 445 N.Y.S.2d 420, 423, 429 N.E.2d 1049, 1052 (1981); Deweese v. Crawford, 520 S.W.2d 522, 526 (Tex.App. 1975). While the Tennessee Supreme Court has held that Tennessee's grandparent visitation statute is unconstitutional under the Tennessee Constitution, the court did not decide whether the statute is unconstitutional under the United States Constitution. See Hawk v. Hawk, 855 S.W.2d 573, 582 (Tenn.1993). To date, only Georgia has declared a statute permitting court-ordered grandparent visitation, if in the best interest of the child, to be unconstitutional under the United States Constitution. See Brooks v. Parkerson, 265 Ga. 189, 454 S.E.2d 769, 773-74 (1995). Campbell v. Campbell, 896 P.2d 635, 644 n. 18 (Utah App.1995). As with RCW 26.10.160(3) and former RCW 26.09.240, the Kentucky statute at issue in King allowed visitation by nonparents (i.e., grandparents) if in the best interest of the child. Cf. Ky.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 405.021, RCW 26.10.160(3) and former RCW 26.09.240. The denial of certiorari by the Supreme Court suggests the Kentucky Supreme Court correctly determined the application of the similar Kentucky statute did not go too far in intruding into the fundamental rights of parents under the federal constitution. As the Washington Constitution affords no greater protection than the federal constitution in this area, see Ramm v. City of Seattle, 66 Wash.App. 15, 27, 830 P.2d 395, review denied, 120 Wash.2d 1018, 844 P.2d 437 (1992), Washington's similar provisions likewise withstand a constitutional challenge. [3] See also Sightes v. Barker, 684 N.E.2d 224 (Ind.App.) (upholding Indiana's Grandparent Visitation Act against a federal constitutional challenge as a less than substantial encroachment on the parent's rights and a legitimate exercise of the state's parens patriae power where such visitation serves the child's best interests), transfer denied, 690 N.E.2d 1187 (Ind.1997). Even in the absence of specific statutory authority a court may exercise its parens patriae power to act in the child's best interests regarding visitation matters, as the New Hampshire supreme court in Roberts v. Ward, 126 N.H. 388, 493 A.2d 478 (1985). Recognizing the changing circumstances of modern families, the Roberts court awarded visitation rights to grandparents, over objections of the natural parent, based on the court's equitable powers. While noting the importance of parental rights the court opined: Parental autonomy is grounded in the assumption that natural parents raise their own children in nuclear families, consisting of a married couple and their children. The family has been seen as the basic building block of society. Parental autonomy strengthens the family and the entire social fabric by encouraging parents to raise their children in the best way they can by making them secure in the knowledge that neither the state nor outside individuals may ordinarily intervene. The realities of modern living, however, demonstrate that the validity of according almost absolute judicial deference to parental rights has become less compelling as the foundation upon which they are premised, the traditional nuclear family, has eroded.... More varied and complicated family situations arise as divorces, and decisions not to marry, result in single-parent families; as remarriages create step-families; as some parents abandon their children; as others give them to temporary caretakers; and as still others are judged unfit to raise their own children. One of the frequent consequences, for children, of the decline of the traditional nuclear family is the formation of close personal attachments between them and adults outside of their immediate families. Stepparents, foster parents, grandparents and other caretakers often form close bonds and, in effect, become psychological parents to children whose nuclear families are not intact. It would be shortsighted indeed, for this court not to recognize the realities and complexities of modern family life, by holding today that a child has no rights, over the objection of a parent, to maintain a close extra-parental relationship which has formed in the absence of a nuclear family. Roberts, 126 N.H. at 391-92, 493 A.2d 478 (citations omitted). Emphasizing the best interests of the child to be of paramount concern the Roberts court held exercise of the parens patriae power to act in the child's welfare was appropriate here: ... the better view is that the superior court, as an instrumentality of the State, may use its parens patriae power to decide whether the welfare of the child warrants court-ordered visitation with grandparents to whom close personal attachments have been made. . . . . In determining whether or not to grant grandparental visitation, the court must consider the best interests of the child. In doing so, it recognizes that it is primarily the right of the child to ... know her grandparents which is being protected and not the interests of the grandparents. Moreover, in balancing the child's rights to know and associate with her grandparents against the parent's right to custodial autonomy, we note that we are dealing here only with visitation rights. [G]ranting visitation is a far lesser intrusion, or assertion of control, than is an award of custody and thus not nearly as invasive of parents' rights. Our holding today is in accord with the position taken by a number of other jurisdictions, which have found non-statutory bases for granting grandparents visitation rights. Roberts, 126 N.H. at 392-93, 493 A.2d 478 (citations omitted).