Third party visitation rights lawsuit

[Anonymous]

Following on the thread about cutting off a parent -- have you ever dealt with them suing you for access?

[Anonymous]

They have no rights unless they previously acted in a parental role to the grandchildren -- i.e. took care of them for an extended period of time. Read this Supreme Court case: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-138.ZO.html

[Anonymous]

I think different states have different laws. The Supreme Court addressed the issue of third party visitation in Troxel v. Granville, 120 S.Ct. 2054 (1999). In a case brought by grandparents who sought an expanded visitation schedule, the court held unconstitutional a Washington state statute that allowed a court to award visitation to any third party at any time based solely on the best interest of the child standard. But it did not declare that the Washington state law allowing rights to visitation unconstitutional. As such, it does allow state laws to govern rights of third party individuals to see the child. In Maryland, Grandparent visitation rights are codified in the Maryland Annotated Code, Family Law Article § 9-102. The statute was amended in 1993, and now reads as follows: "An Equity Court may: consider a Petition for reasonable visitation of a grandchild by a grandparent; and if the Court finds it to be in the best interest of the child, grant visitation rights to grandparent." However, a grandparent is unlikely to be successful petitioning for visitation over the objection of the parents unless the grandparent is able to show that the parent is unfit or exceptional circumstances exist to indicate that the lack of grandparent visitation will have a harmful effect upon the child who is the subject of the petition.