Court Opinion

ID: 9516595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 23:46:42.475328+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:41:00.250926
License: Public Domain

McAULIFFE, Judge,
concurring.
It may be that what the chancellor intended to convey when he spoke of “exceptional” circumstances was the *51notion that ordinarily it will be neither necessary nor proper to award separate visitation rights to grandparents in order tp accommodate the best interests of a child. If that is all he intended to say, I agree with him.
Under ordinary circumstances and in the usual case, each parent should be willing and able to include visits with grandparents when the children are with that parent. It will be the unusual case, where visitation with the noncustodial parent is restricted or non-existent, or where a parent is estranged from his or her parents, or where for some other reason, the customary interaction with grandparents is not possible, that the best interests of the child may warrant the unusual, but certainly available, order granting visitation to grandparents.
There is more than enough acrimony, heartbreak, expense, and suffering involved in child custody cases now; I am confident the legislature did not intend to exacerbate this situation by suggesting that grandparental involvement in custody and visitation disputes should become the norm. When the chancellor said there were no unusual or “exceptional” circumstances in the present case, he was correct. The mother had the children with her on alternate weekends and on specified holidays, and for a vacation during the summer. The mother and her parents live in the same area, and they are not estranged. The decision by the chancellor that this arrangement afforded adequate time for grandpa-rental visitation, and that additional visitation would not be in the best interests of the children, was well within the range of the chancellor’s discretion, and should have been affirmed but for the absence of a necessary party.