Court Opinion

ID: 9681971
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:02:36.201884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:36.808632
License: Public Domain

LAMBERT, Justice,
dissenting.
The issue here is not as the majority presents it. The issue is not whether visitation with a grandparent is desirable and in the best interest of the grandchild. Rather, the issue is whether the state, by enactment of a statute which has as its only standard the subjective requirement of “best interest,” may invade an intact nuclear family and require that family to deliver its minor child to another person for visitation. The opinion of the majority makes little pretense of constitutional analysis but depends entirely on the sentimental notion of an inherent value in visitation between grandparent and grandchild, regardless of the wishes of the parents. The fatal flaw in the majority opinion is its conclusion that a grandparent has a “fundamental right” to visitation with a grandchild. No authority is cited for this proposition as there is no such right.
The statement of facts in the majority opinion is not entirely unbalanced, but it omits several facts important to an understanding of the case. As found by the trial court, movant placed great demands on his son, Stewart King, respondent herein, to work on movant’s farm in exchange for free rent and a portion of the crop proceeds. Respondent’s farm work was in addition to a full-time factory job and when he did not perform as his father expected, he was ordered to move from the premises. Moreover, the evidence is clear that movant is an overbearing individual who intruded with impunity upon respondents’ family life demonstrating total indifference to their wishes. Finally, the majority fails to mention that movant openly cohabits with Ema-rine Cash, a woman to whom he is not married, and that the trial court granted Emarine Cash, a woman with no marriage or blood kinship to the infant child, a right to pick up the child for visitation.
There is no doubt that parents have an “essential” liberty interest, free of state interference, in the rearing of their children. Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 43 S.Ct. 625, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923). Such interest has been described as “basic civil rights of man” (Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 62 S.Ct. 1110, 86 L.Ed. 1655 (1942)) and “far more precious than property rights” (May v. Anderson, 345 U.S. 528, 73 S.Ct. 840, 97 L.Ed. 1221 (1953)). In Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 97 S.Ct. 1932, 52 L.Ed.2d 531 (1977) (plurality opinion), the Court acknowledged an extreme limitation on governmental intrusion into family affairs.
“[W]hen the government intrudes on choices concerning family living arrangements, the Court must examine carefully the importance of the governmental interests advanced and the extent to which they are served by the challenged regulation.”
The right of parents to control the upbringing of their children was expressly recognized in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925):
“[W]e think it entirely plain that the [statute] unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to *634direct the upbringing and education of children under their control....”
In a far-reaching decision, Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972), the Court held that the legitimate state interest in promoting secondary education was insufficient to overcome the wishes of the parents to the contrary. While the Court’s decision in Yoder was based in part on First Amendment grounds, the Court noted that such education was
“in marked variance with Amish values and the Amish way of life; they view secondary school education as an impermissible exposure of their children to a ‘worldly’ influence in conflict with the beliefs.” Yoder, supra.
Relying on Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra, the Court said:
“[T]he values of parental direction of the religious upbringing and education of their children in their early and formative years have a high place in our society.” Yoder, supra.
The right to family autonomy which had been recognized in various earlier decisions was flatly declared an express right in Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982). In determining what standard of proof was necessary in termination of parental rights cases, the Court forcefully reiterated its view as to the rights of parents in their child:
“The absence of dispute [that parents have a due process right in termination cases] reflected this Court’s historical recognition that freedom of personal choice in matters of family life is a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. (Citations omitted.) The fundamental liberty interest of natural parents in the care, custody, and management of their child does not evaporate simply because they have not been model parents or have lost temporary custody of their child to the State.” 455 U.S. at 753, 102 S.Ct. at 1394.
The foregoing cases fully demonstrate that parents have a fundamental liberty interest in maintaining an autonomous family unit except in limited circumstances, some of which are identified in the majority opinion, in which the state has been determined to have a compelling interest. There is no doubt that court-ordered visitation with a minor child by one outside the nuclear family amounts to an invasion of family autonomy. The question thus becomes what is the compelling state interest in requiring visitation between a grandchild and grandparent when the nuclear family is intact and functioning in a satisfactory manner.
The majority opinion and the statute seem to rely on the idea, in addition to the erroneous belief of a fundamental right in the grandparent, that the lives of the grandchild and grandparent are enriched by their association. While such may be true in many cases, while in others it is not, mere improvement in quality of life is not a compelling state interest and is insufficient to justify invasion of constitutional rights. So long as a family satisfies certain minimum standards with respect to the care of its children, the state has no interest in attempting to “make things better.”
It could not be disputed that the lives of most children could be theoretically improved by placing them with a more loving, attentive, and affluent family. None would seriously argue, however, that the state possesses the power to redistribute the infant population in such a manner simply because of its perception that a child would be better off somewhere else. Before the state should be permitted to intervene in the relationship between parent and child, there must be a determination that the care of the child fails to satisfy minimum standards.
Recent Kentucky authority has recognized the *635In Davis, the litigation was between a paternal grandmother and the natural mother. The trial court found the mother to be unfit and determined that the best interest of the child was to place custody with the grandmother. The Court of Appeals and this Court reversed relying on Santosky, supra, Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (1972), and McNames v. Corum, Ky., 683 S.W.2d 246 (1985). We reiterated the rule that a finding of unfitness must be by clear and convincing proof and described factors which showed unfitness and that poverty alone was an insufficient basis to deprive the mother of custody. Thus, we recognized that a showing of general improvement of the child’s life is insufficient to deprive the natural parent of custody. We required a showing of harm to the child by virtue of parental unfitness. There is no reason a similar rule should not be applied in an action for grandparent visitation. Absent a showing of harm to the child, there is no compelling state interest in intervention into the affairs of an autonomous family and any statute which authorizes such intervention violates the parents’ liberty interest under the Fourteenth Amendment.
*634“fundamental, basic and constitutionally protected rights [parents have] to raise their own children and that any attack by third persons (and this would include grandparents in that category) seeking to abrogate that right must show unfitness by ‘clear and convincing evidence.’ ” Davis v. Collinsworth, Ky., 771 S.W.2d 329 (1989).
*635In its opinion, the majority omits the foregoing essential step in the analysis. Rather than focus on the child for possible harm, it makes the per se assumption that deprivation of access to the grandparent is harm. There is no authority for this proposition and it is otherwise illogical.
While court-ordered visitation is an invasion of family autonomy, one may ask why not balance the interests of the parties and require the parents to suffer minor denigration of their rights in favor of the benefits presumed from association between the grandchild and grandparent. The answer to this question is eloquently stated in Bean, Grandparent Visitation: Can the Parent Refuse?, 24 U.Lou.J.Fam.L. 393 (1985), as follows:
“Some parents and judges will not care if children are physically disciplined by the grandparents; some parents and judges will not care if the grandparents teach children a religion inconsistent with the parents’ religion; some judges and parents will not care if the children are exposed to or taught racist beliefs or sexist beliefs; .... But some parents and some judges will care. Between the two, the parents should be the ones to choose not to expose their children to certain people or ideas, and without a showing that this deprivation has harmed the child in some way beyond a per se disassociation with the grandparents, the family’s private decision-making should not be tried in a court of equity. Instead, the grandparents’ request and justification for visitation should be subject to scrutiny and should be proved necessary to the welfare of the child.”
A final point should be made. In 1984, the Legislature authorized courts to grant visitation rights to grandparents. While many children undoubtedly have a close familial bond with their grandparents, other children have close bonds with adult siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, stepparents and step-grandparents, and neighbors. If the grandparent visitation statute passes constitutional muster, there is no reason to believe a similar statute could not be enacted for benefit of a host of other relatives or even family friends. Under the majority opinion, there is no reason to doubt the constitutionality of a statute, if one should be enacted, which gave standing to virtually any person who claimed to be devoted to the child; and upon a court determination of best interest, allow that person visitation rights regardless of the parents’ wishes. Manifestly, such a statute would result in chaos for parents as they attempt to rear their children.
For the foregoing reasons, I dissent.
WINTERSHEIMER, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.