Court Opinion

ID: 9715506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:07:14.510316+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:35.392829
License: Public Domain

LARSON, Justice
(dissenting).
The majority, I believe, erroneously applies a legal standard which conflicts with our grandparent visitation statute, Iowa Code section 598.35, and with two recent cases which hold that that section is the exclusive source of authority for grandparent visitation and that an intervening adoption terminates such rights. Even more significantly, it overrides the custodial parent’s objections and orders visitation in the face of the clear weight of the evidence, which was that the child’s best interests required that visitation not be ordered. Its legal theory will have an impact far beyond the “limited facts of this case,” as the majority asserts; it is in fact a blueprint for future evasion of our grandparent visitation statute, and the effect of an intervening adoption, by simply establishing a guardianship, Iowa Code § 633.552 (“any person” may petition for guardianship), and then, as here, demanding visitation rights.
The majority observes that “[t]he authority of the probate court to grant access of the award to grandparents arises from a child’s best interest rather than from a statutory or common-law right possessed by the grandparent.” (Emphasis added.) Yet this court said very recently in Olds v. Olds, 356 N.W.2d 571, 573 (Iowa 1984), that the only basis for ordering grandparent visitation is a statute, specifically Iowa Code section 598.35. The probate court in this case recognized that fact and based its ruling solely on section 598.35.
In thus disavowing application of any “statutory or common-law right” the majority suggests that the power of a probate court in a guardianship somehow transcends the statutory authority of 598.35 available to the district court generally. The probate court, however, is simply given jurisdiction of the administration of guardianship proceedings in Iowa Code § 633.-10(3) (1983); I do not believe it is given the power to grant rights not provided it by statute or common law simply because it is *739acting in a guardianship. The majority points to the child’s “best interests” and on that basis alone asserts authority to order visitation without regard to the lack of express, or implied, statutory authority to do so.
Our grandparent visitation statute allows a court to act in a child’s best interest. It provides, in part:
A petition for grandchild visitation rights shall be granted only upon a finding that the visitation is in the best interest of the child.
Iowa Code section 598.35. Under this section, however, it is not enough to show that visitation is in the best interest of the child; the petitioner must also meet at least one of the other criteria, which in effect establishes standing, such as an assertion that “[t]he parent of the child, who is the child of the grandparents, has died.” Iowa Code section 598.35(3). Thus both criteria, standing and the child’s best interests, must be established. We cannot assume, as the majority apparently has, that the legislature intended to grant an inherent but unexpressed authority for a probate court to order grandparent visitation on a showing of only one of the criteria when a specific statute on the subject, section 598.-35, requires at least two.
I think a probate court clearly has the authority to order grandparent visitation, but under section 598.35, not under the majority’s single-criterion test. (We have held that our grandparent visitation statute, section 598.35, while found in the dissolution of marriage chapter, is not limited in application to dissolution cases. See In the Matter of the Adoption of Gardiner, 287 N.W.2d at 555, 557 (Iowa 1980).)
There is nothing in our Probate Code, chapter 633, which even suggests that a probate judge has any authority beyond section 598.35 to order such visitation. Why the majority chose to fashion its own basis for ordering grandparent visitation when there is already an express statutory authority to do so, remains a mystery to me, unless it is to provide a means of distinguishing Gardiner, which held an adoption cuts off grandparent visitation under section 598.35. This leads me to another point on the law of this case.
II. This child had been adopted by his father’s present wife before the petition for visitation was filed. Our holding in Gard-iner, that an adoption terminates the right of grandparent visitation, is not confronted directly by the majority. It merely says Gardiner was not a guardianship case therefore it is inapposite. I believe this is a spurious argument because, for the reasons previously discussed, there should be no distinction between the power of the court sitting at probate and one sitting in another division of the district court. In any event, all the policy arguments supporting Gardiner’s holding, primarily the need for a child’s new start, are equally compelling, regardless of which division the district court is ruling on it.
III. Regardless of which test is applied, the best interests must be established before grandparent visitation may be ordered. Our review is de novo. See Iowa Code section 633.33 (probate matters, with certain exceptions not applicable here, are to be tried in equity).
The majority, which places great reliance on the best interests test, points to no evidence as to how those interests are advanced by forced visitation. I submit, in fact, the only evidence on the issue mandates a different result.
The grandmother and her daughter (an aunt to this child) testified as to how well Randy and their own family members got along and how much his visits meant to the family. This is certainly understandable. Noticeably lacking in the record, however, is any evidence that it would be in Randy’s best interests to order visitation. There is no psychological or other expert testimony to that effect. In fact, no one, not even the family members, testified it would be in Randy’s best interests. The words “best interests” or any equivalent, in fact, do not appear once in the petitioner’s evidence.
On the other hand, there is evidence that it would not be in his best interests. The *740father’s affidavit, which was received in evidence without objection, stated:
David [the father] wishes to petition the court to examine the facts as to why Randal should not be ordered to return to Iowa without his parent's permission.
Randal lives with his natural father, David K. Ankeney, and his mother by adoption, Mary Lou Ankeney. The court order for Randal’s adoption gives his mother, Mary Lou Ankeney all the rights and provisions, along with the responsibilities of the natural parent. The family unit in which Randal lives is an extremely close family. Randal is very close to his mother, and to his brother and sister, besides the loving, close relationship he has with his father. In this family setting, there is an exceptionally high degree of love and caring for Randal, along with the necessary guidelines of supervision, which is sadly neglected in much of today’s society. I want to emphasize how important and precious Randal’s well-being is to his father, David, and to his mother, Mary Lou.
The situation between the McWhirter family, and the Ankeney family, has deteriorated to absolute mistrust. The McWhirters have neglected time and time again any sensible lines of open communication about Randal, with David. This has caused David K. Anke-ney to experience much doubt and suspicion about the McWhirter’s true intentions toward Randal.

Furthermore, on Randal’s previous visits with the McWhirter family, David has been extremely concerned about the lack of supervision given, and the participation in activities not suited for a child of Randal’s age.

(Emphasis added.)1
Ordinarily, it would be in the best interests of a child to maintain family ties such as these. We do not have an ordinary situation here, though. What we have is a highly charged confrontation, both in and out of court, and the child is in the middle of it. While the grandmother and aunt testified these hostilities were strictly between the adults and agreed to keep Randy out of it, they admitted they had already brought him into it by discussing it with him.
Randy’s father strenuously objected to the visitation order. While section 598.35 recognizes limited restrictions on a parent’s right to veto grandparent visitation, this court has recognized a strong policy basis for such veto rights:
Courts that give a custodial parent veto power over grandparent visitation do so on the basis that judicial enforcement of visitation would divide and thereby hamper proper parental authority, force the child into the midst of a conflict of authority and ill feelings between parent and grandparent, and coerce what should remain a moral rather than legal obligation.
Olds, 356 N.W.2d at 573.
The child’s father literally begged to be given the rights of a parent in such matters. In the affidavit previously referred to he said:
David K. Ankeney beseeches the court to consider the absolute rights and responsibilities the parents have to care for and to raise up a child in the ways which are right. Only the parents know the feelings, the attitudes, the situations in which their precious child, whom they dearly love, should be exposed. With the absolute lack of trust between the McWhirter family, and the Ankeney family, David K. Ankeney begs the court to not take away the parents’ rights for Randal’s well-being by forcing Randal into a visitation which would not be in Randal’s best interests.
There is without question a moral obligation to provide visitation to this grandmother. The loss of her daughter, this child’s *741mother, makes that moral obligation even more compelling, it seems to me. Because of the proponent’s failure to establish that the best interests of the child would be served by forced visitation, and even more clearly by the intervening adoption, however, that moral obligation has not been transformed into a legal one.
I would reverse and remand for an order striking the provisions for forced grandpa-rental visitation.
HARRIS and McGIVERIN, JJ., join this dissent.

. While the affidavit referred to is filed after the order appealed from was filed, the appellee grandmother raised the issue of the effect of subsequent contempt proceedings and filed an amendment to the appendix dealing with that issue. The father’s affidavit was filed in connection with those proceedings, which are involved in this appeal.