Just to give you an idea

[LdiJ]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? FL

Just to give you an idea of how bad the grandparent visitation situation was prior to Troxel, I thought I would share this story. This happened in FL, about a year before the FL Supreme court declared their gpv statutes to be unconstitutional.

Mom and dad divorced, dad disappeared for 6 years. Mom had a cordial relationship with the paternal gps and they saw the child regularly, but not more than a half dozen times a year. The paternal gps were divorced.

Mom met a man and remarried, and the paternal gps panicked. They assumed mom would shut them out and have her husband adopt the child. So they served her with a suit for gpv on her WEDDING day.

The also hunted down their son and bribed him to come home and file for visitation. The judge combined the two cases and ordered a GAL to investigate.

The GAL felt that the child had a good relationship with the grandparents and deserved a relationship with the father, so the GAL recommended that mom retain primary custody, but that each grandparent get one weekend a month and one weekday overnight a week, and that the father get one weekend a month and one weekday overnight a week as well. That left mom, the parent with primary custody, 1 day a week and one weekend a month!

So, that meant that the child would sleep at a different house every night of the week, and a different house every weekend.

A GAL RECOMMENDED this...that was the climate of gpv then.

Luckily the judge said that was ridiculous, and ordered that the gps and the father share every other weekend and one night a week...which ended up being very confusing for both the child, and the grandparents and father, because they had a hard time keeping track of whose turn it was to have the child.

Also, grandparents frequently, in all states, sued for visitation of all existing and FUTURE grandchildren, and frequently got orders for such.

Now, thanks to grass roots efforts of some parent's rights groups, we were whittling away at those laws, one state at a time, and making considerable progress, but thank god for Troxel. I think that PA is the only state in the US whose laws have not been either struck down, stuck down and revised, or just revised.

[IsabellaSoriano]

Originally Posted by LdiJ

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? FL

Just to give you an idea of how bad the grandparent visitation situation was prior to Troxel, I thought I would share this story. This happened in FL, about a year before the FL Supreme court declared their gpv statutes to be unconstitutional.

Mom and dad divorced, dad disappeared for 6 years. Mom had a cordial relationship with the paternal gps and they saw the child regularly, but not more than a half dozen times a year. The paternal gps were divorced.

Mom met a man and remarried, and the paternal gps panicked. They assumed mom would shut them out and have her husband adopt the child. So they served her with a suit for gpv on her WEDDING day.

The also hunted down their son and bribed him to come home and file for visitation. The judge combined the two cases and ordered a GAL to investigate.

The GAL felt that the child had a good relationship with the grandparents and deserved a relationship with the father, so the GAL recommended that mom retain primary custody, but that each grandparent get one weekend a month and one weekday overnight a week, and that the father get one weekend a month and one weekday overnight a week as well. That left mom, the parent with primary custody, 1 day a week and one weekend a month!

So, that meant that the child would sleep at a different house every night of the week, and a different house every weekend.

A GAL RECOMMENDED this...that was the climate of gpv then.

Luckily the judge said that was ridiculous, and ordered that the gps and the father share every other weekend and one night a week...which ended up being very confusing for both the child, and the grandparents and father, because they had a hard time keeping track of whose turn it was to have the child.

Also, grandparents frequently, in all states, sued for visitation of all existing and FUTURE grandchildren, and frequently got orders for such.

Now, thanks to grass roots efforts of some parent's rights groups, we were whittling away at those laws, one state at a time, and making considerable progress, but thank god for Troxel. I think that PA is the only state in the US whose laws have not been either struck down, stuck down and revised, or just revised.

i'm flabbergasted. i still can't believe that even was allowable.

[LdiJ]

Originally Posted by IsabellaSoriano

i'm flabbergasted. i still can't believe that even was allowable.

Oh yeah...I worked with dozens and dozens of pregnant couples, or pregnant unwed or widowed mothers who had to go through gpv cases WHILE they were pregnant...and those same dozens who had to turn their newborns over to the grandparents for visitation within days of their being born.

Even DADs didn't get visitation that quickly...and had to establish paternity first, but not grandparents! Now, it wasn't that way in all states, some states required that paternity be established first...but it happened a LOT.

Gpv laws started going into effect in a few states in the 60's and their original intent was to protect grandparents if their own child died, and the other parent moved on with their life and wanted to pretend that the first family never existed. Perhaps a stepparent adopted and wanted no reminders that the child wasn't biologically his or hers...etc. Most people had complete sympathy for that. However, things morphed to the point that by the time the mid 80's rolled around it had gotten completely out of hand.

Grandparents automatically won almost every case...and they got the equivalent of standard NCP visitation (every other weekend, one night a week, every other holiday, and 1/2 of the summer). It was almost impossible for a parent to win a gpv case unless they took it to the appellate and the state supreme court and landed themselves with a 100k plus in legal debt.

Parents often won at the state supreme court level, and that often got laws declared unconstitutional, but then states would rewrite the laws and half the time the new laws would be no better than the old ones. It took Troxel to make the states stand up and take notice, and also to give the state supreme courts more cajones to do something about the laws.

Many of the state statutes still are not particularly good, but now most judges will base a decision on true merits (but they will push as hard as they can to force parties to come to agreements so that they do not HAVE to make a decision on merits) and grandparents have no better than a 50/50 shot at winning, and do NOT get anything close to the visitation that a parent would get when they do win.

I once heard a judge state in open court (prior to Troxel): "Yes, the record shows that the grandmother had her children removed from her care by CPS for abuse and her parental rights terminated, but that is not an indication that she will abuse her grandchildren, therefore its not a basis for me to deny her visitation."

[Rushia]

Originally Posted by LdiJ

I once heard a judge state in open court (prior to Troxel): "Yes, the record shows that the grandmother had her children removed from her care by CPS for abuse and her parental rights terminated, but that is not an indication that she will abuse her grandchildren, therefore its not a basis for me to deny her visitation."

The gp's lawyer tried to use that case for getting stepgramma in. Needless to say the judge shot that down REAL quick!

[IsabellaSoriano]

Originally Posted by LdiJ

I once heard a judge state in open court (prior to Troxel): "Yes, the record shows that the grandmother had her children removed from her care by CPS for abuse and her parental rights terminated, but that is not an indication that she will abuse her grandchildren, therefore its not a basis for me to deny her visitation."

i almost fell out of my chair on this. that doesn't make sense (okay, reality not all laws do). if her rights to her own children were terminated, she legally didn't have any children. therefore, legally she has no grandchildren. that's like my sweet old lady next door who babysits for my child once a month for 15 years gets to have visitation rights.

[LdiJ]

Originally Posted by IsabellaSoriano

i almost fell out of my chair on this. that doesn't make sense (okay, reality not all laws do). if her rights to her own children were terminated, she legally didn't have any children. therefore, legally she has no grandchildren. that's like my sweet old lady next door who babysits for my child once a month for 15 years gets to have visitation rights.

And if you had lived in Washington state, prior to Troxel, that little old lady who babysat your children absolutely COULD have gotten visitation rights. WA gave standing to ANYONE to sue for visitation of ANY child.

One of the parents I worked with was a woman who fought a two year battle, with an ex boyfriend, WHO NEVER EVEN LIVED WITH HER, over visitation of her daughter. She spent tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees before the boyfriend gave up, because he had run out of money.

Another woman in WA state was a live in housekeeper to a rich couple. Her young daughter lived with her. When she quit her job her employers filed for visitation with her daughter, and were GRANTED visitation rights.

You have NOOO idea how bad things were prior to Troxel. I have stories that would curl your toes, but most of them are too long to post here.

One of the biggest problems was that the same exact "best interests" standards were used for grandparents or other third parties who had standing to sue as was used for parents. So if they had standing to sue, and the parents couldn't prove them legally unfit...currently legally unfit...they got visitation.

Many grandparents also bitterly regreted that they ever filed for visitation because it destroyed any hope of a meaningful relationship with their grandchildren...the older the children got, the more they resented the grandparents for the forced visitation...and most of them never had anything to do with their grandparents after they became adults.

The only saving grace was that in most states (not all, but most) intact families were safe from anyone having standing...but not in Washington State or several others.

[Proserpina]

Wow.

This was quite the education - frightening, but still incredibly informative.