Denying Visitation to Grandparent

[Dd120]

Arkansas
My wife's mother has always had a bit of a drinking problem(After she was informed that her daughter, my wife, was pregnant she got drunk and accused her of sleeping with a man of a different race). When our daughter was born, we said she could only babysit her if she was sober(and I mean kick the habit entirely). She agreed and watched our daughter one day a week for roughly 5-6 hours a day and we visited her almost every weekend along with the grandmother's father. She was doing well when after 3-4 months( my daughter was a year old before we felt comfortable with her staying over) we went to pick up our daughter and noticed the grandmother had been drinking while our daughter was in her care. We denied to let her ever watch her again and that we'd only visit on the weekends in the future.
Fast forward two years and she's still drinking and now harassing us to let her babysit our daughter again. We told her "no" numerous times and gave her the reason that we couldn't trust her to not endanger our child's life again. She recently started making bold assertions that my grandmother(child's great grandmother) is abusing our child(great grandmother babysits during the week while we work) and, of course, never provided proof. Needless to say the child loves my grandmother and has never come home with cuts or bruises out of the ordinary. She recently removed my wife from her will and said that she only loved our daughter and that my wife only liked my family for the money(we were in a rough spot with bills and my family loaned us money which we repaid). There have been numerous other occasions of verbal abuse from her, mostly while under the influence, but she's started being verbally abusive while not, to our knowledge, intoxicated.

I want to, legally, separate this woman from our daughter because she will also harass my grandmother while she takes our daughter to the park or library. My wife has agreed, and I was wondering what steps I could take to insure that our daughter never comes into contact with her maternal grandmother again.

 

[TheGeekess]

Arkansas
My wife's mother has always had a bit of a drinking problem(After she was informed that her daughter, my wife, was pregnant she got drunk and accused her of sleeping with a man of a different race). When our daughter was born, we said she could only babysit her if she was sober(and I mean kick the habit entirely). She agreed and watched our daughter one day a week for roughly 5-6 hours a day and we visited her almost every weekend along with the grandmother's father. She was doing well when after 3-4 months( my daughter was a year old before we felt comfortable with her staying over) we went to pick up our daughter and noticed the grandmother had been drinking while our daughter was in her care. We denied to let her ever watch her again and that we'd only visit on the weekends in the future.
Fast forward two years and she's still drinking and now harassing us to let her babysit our daughter again. We told her "no" numerous times and gave her the reason that we couldn't trust her to not endanger our child's life again. She recently started making bold assertions that my grandmother(child's great grandmother) is abusing our child(great grandmother babysits during the week while we work) and, of course, never provided proof. Needless to say the child loves my grandmother and has never come home with cuts or bruises out of the ordinary. She recently removed my wife from her will and said that she only loved our daughter and that my wife only liked my family for the money(we were in a rough spot with bills and my family loaned us money which we repaid). There have been numerous other occasions of verbal abuse from her, mostly while under the influence, but she's started being verbally abusive while not, to our knowledge, intoxicated.

I want to, legally, separate this woman from our daughter because she will also harass my grandmother while she takes our daughter to the park or library. My wife has agreed, and I was wondering what steps I could take to insure that our daughter never comes into contact with her maternal grandmother again.

Don't take Daughter to that house anymore.
Maternal grandmother has no rights. If you don't wish for her to see your child, then that's all there is to it.

 

[Zigner]

Arkansas
My wife's mother has always had a bit of a drinking problem(After she was informed that her daughter, my wife, was pregnant she got drunk and accused her of sleeping with a man of a different race). When our daughter was born, we said she could only babysit her if she was sober(and I mean kick the habit entirely). She agreed and watched our daughter one day a week for roughly 5-6 hours a day and we visited her almost every weekend along with the grandmother's father. She was doing well when after 3-4 months( my daughter was a year old before we felt comfortable with her staying over) we went to pick up our daughter and noticed the grandmother had been drinking while our daughter was in her care. We denied to let her ever watch her again and that we'd only visit on the weekends in the future.
Fast forward two years and she's still drinking and now harassing us to let her babysit our daughter again. We told her "no" numerous times and gave her the reason that we couldn't trust her to not endanger our child's life again. She recently started making bold assertions that my grandmother(child's great grandmother) is abusing our child(great grandmother babysits during the week while we work) and, of course, never provided proof. Needless to say the child loves my grandmother and has never come home with cuts or bruises out of the ordinary. She recently removed my wife from her will and said that she only loved our daughter and that my wife only liked my family for the money(we were in a rough spot with bills and my family loaned us money which we repaid). There have been numerous other occasions of verbal abuse from her, mostly while under the influence, but she's started being verbally abusive while not, to our knowledge, intoxicated.

I want to, legally, separate this woman from our daughter because she will also harass my grandmother while she takes our daughter to the park or library. My wife has agreed, and I was wondering what steps I could take to insure that our daughter never comes into contact with her maternal grandmother again.

Stop talking to her.

 

[Dd120]

Don't take Daughter to that house anymore.
Maternal grandmother has no rights. If you don't wish for her to see your child, then that's all there is to it.

We don't take her over anymore, but we would still like our daughter to spend time with my wife's grandfather. If the woman hears we are over there, she will come over and harass us(has happened 3 times in the past 2 months). Further is the issue that she will harass my grandmother while she's taking our daughter out for walks or going to the library or even tumbling class since the library and tumbling are on a set schedule.

I'm just looking for any legal recourse to keep her away from my daughter.

 

[TheGeekess]

We don't take her over anymore, but we would still like our daughter to spend time with my wife's grandfather. If the woman hears we are over there, she will come over and harass us(has happened 3 times in the past 2 months). Further is the issue that she will harass my grandmother while she's taking our daughter out for walks or going to the library or even tumbling class since the library and tumbling are on a set schedule.

I'm just looking for any legal recourse to keep her away from my daughter.

Then you need to leave and tell Grandfather you'll come back another time.

As far as your Grandmother, if she is really being harassed, then Grandmother needs to get a restraining order.

 

[Dd120]

To clarify a bit more, I wanted to know if I could file for an order of protection against my wife's mother to keep her at a distance from my daughter.
What I've read states that there should be either violence or the threat of violence. Though I haven't witnessed any nor felt particularly threatened by my wife's mother, the harassment has become an issue.

Would it be reasonable to get the order or should my wife and I continue to avoid her like the plague and just deal with it?

 

[LdiJ]

To clarify a bit more, I wanted to know if I could file for an order of protection against my wife's mother to keep her at a distance from my daughter.
What I've read states that there should be either violence or the threat of violence. Though I haven't witnessed any nor felt particularly threatened by my wife's mother, the harassment has become an issue.

Would it be reasonable to get the order or should my wife and I continue to avoid her like the plague and just deal with it?

You are going to have a hard time convincing a judge to issue a protection order against the child's grandmother, with your set of facts.
In fact, you may even have a hard time convincing a judge that there is any harassment, depending on what your definition of harassment is.

Just do not talk to her...and avoid places where she might be. You also might want to consider changing up your daughter's activities so that grandma won't know when and where she is going to be at any particular time.

 

[CTU]

To clarify a bit more, I wanted to know if I could file for an order of protection against my wife's mother to keep her at a distance from my daughter.
What I've read states that there should be either violence or the threat of violence. Though I haven't witnessed any nor felt particularly threatened by my wife's mother, the harassment has become an issue.

Would it be reasonable to get the order or should my wife and I continue to avoid her like the plague and just deal with it?

Dude, seriously - just cut off contact.

The courts are not a tool used to remove annoying relatives from your life.