Court Opinion

ID: 9561803
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:16:30.770359+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:29.601781
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur but wish to explain further why I believe the interplay between OCGA §§ 19-8-14 and 19-7-3 lead to the statutory construction extracted by the Court.
I assume for the purpose of this case that the natural grandmother was a legally cognizable grandmother even though the grandchild had never been legitimated by the natural father through whom grandparentage was claimed.
The statute which the grandmother in this case relies on was first passed in 1976. Ga. L. 1976, p. 247. It has been substantially expanded since, beginning with a complete revision as soon as 1980. Ga. L. 1980, pp. 936, 937. The evolving law denotes a public policy favoring a maintenance of the natural grandparent’s personal relationship with the grandchild despite a breach in the parents’ relationship with each other and with the child. The legislature has carved out a variety of familial situations in which a grandparent’s visitation with the child may be judicially recognized and supervised. However, those categories are limited to certain described situations.
The paternal grandmother here contends that subsection (b) (3) of OCGA § 19-7-3 recognizes a right to a grandparent to be considered for visitation even when the legal relationship between that grandparent’s child and the grandchild has been judicially terminated. While that is true, it does not extend to cases where not only termination but also adoption has occurred. Termination of a parent’s *902rights and obligations is one thing, and adoption by a third party is quite another. They are not necessarily simultaneous, and each bears on a different relationship. The legislature did not provide in that subsection for a grandparent when not only termination but also adoption has affected the grandchild’s legal parental status.
Decided January 30, 1987
Rehearing denied March 2, 1987
Lee R. Hasty, for appellants.
Michael C. Smith, for appellee.
The same distinction applies to the references to “termination” in subsections (a) and (c). That is made more evident by the second 1986 amendment, effective in this case, which expressly excepted adoptions where all legal relationships between the adopted child and the adopted child’s relatives were “terminated”. That is what occurred here, by operation of law, when the adoption order was entered. It ended the legal relationship between the father and his relatives on the one hand, and the child on the other. Appellant reads it too narrowly when she argues that it refers only to situations in which there is an adoption by two new parents rather than just one.
Mitchell v. Erdmier, 253 Ga. 335 (320 SE2d 163) (1984) was decided before the two 1986 amendments, but they did not adversely affect its holding insofar as this present case is concerned. However, it should be noted that Sachs v. Walzer, 242 Ga. 742 (251 SE2d 302) (1978), the other case cited by the Court, was based on the law prior to its substantial 1980 revision.