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Understand How a Divorce Can Affect Grandparents Rights in Arizona
If you are a grandparent and your child is going through a divorce or child custody case, you may be asking questions about grandparents rights in Arizona. Specifically, what grandparents rights to you have in Arizona and how will your relationship with your grandchildren be affected.
In some cases, a divorce is resolved amicably. There are no disagreements regarding each parent’s time spent with the children and how significant decisions affecting the children will be made.
In many cases, however, the “discussion” regarding the children quickly escalates into a full-scale battle.
The back and forth over what’s best for the children is a common occurrence, and many have an opinion to share regarding the “mother’s rights” and the “father’s rights” and the “parent’s rights”, but…what about the grandparents’ rights?
Do grandparents have a say in what happens to your grandchildren when their parents are getting divorced?
Grandparent child custody and visitation disputes occur more frequently than you may expect.
Grandparent visitation cases are emotionally sensitive due to the fact children are involved.
In most situations, the entire family is affected by the outcome of these child custody cases.
This can be complicated further if the grandchild’s parents are divorced, making it so each parent is already spending less time with his or her own child.
In some cases, one or both parents may not want the grandchildren to spend time with the children’s grandparents; either because the relationship with the grandparents was damaged during the divorce or the parents simply do not want to give up their limited parenting time with the kids.
Affect of a Termination of Parental Rights on Grandparents Rights in Arizona
You should be aware that your legal rights to visitation with your grandchildren derive from your legal relationship as the children’s grandparents.
As a result, you would lose your grandparent’s rights if the parent through whom you are seeking to exercise your grandparent’s rights has his or her child custody revoked or parental rights terminated.
This means you no longer have the legal status as a grandparent and thus cannot rely upon the grandparent visitation rights statute. However, you may be able to claim in loco parentis status.
The purpose of this is to obtain what is referred to in Arizona as third-party child custody or visitation rights to your grandchildren.
Grandparents’ Rights to Visiting Grandchildren After a Divorce
Arizona law protects a grandparent to petition the court for visitation with a grandchild even if the child’s parent objects to visitation between the child and his or her grandparent. A grandparent has the burden of establishing court-ordered visitation is in the best interest of the child.
Arizona Revised Statute §25-409 is the statute that provides for grandparents visitation rights in AZ.
It is straightforward to establish if the child’s parent has become deceased or that a divorce has occurred.
Situations can become much more challenging, however, if the surviving parent wants to cut off contact between the children and their grandparents. The burden falls upon the grandparents to present persuasive evidence that visitation is in the children’s best interests.
If the parents are divorced, the law in Arizona provides that the grandparent visitation should be ordered to occur during the parent’s visitation schedule through whom the grandparents’ visitation rights are based. Stated differently, the court should schedule a grandparent’s visitation to occur during his or her own child’s court ordered parenting time with the grandchild. If the parent is deceased, the court may order grandparent visitation during the time the deceased parent would have otherwise been entitled to receive.
A petition for grandparents’ visitation rights must be filed under the same case number as the divorce of the children’s parents. If the parents were not married, the case would either be lodged in the same paternity case filed by the parents or, if a paternity case has not been filed, in a separate cause of action in the county in which the child primarily resides.
A grandparent’s right to visitation is dependent upon that grandparent maintaining a legal relationship with the child. The termination of a natural parent’s parental rights to a child and corresponding adoption of the child not only terminate the parent/child relationship but also ends the legal relationship of the grandparents to the child, which eliminates the rights of grandparents to request visitation.
The United States Supreme Court issued a decision in the case of Troxel v. Granville that, on its face, placed significant limitations on a court’s authority to issue an order granting a grandparent visitation with his or her grandchild. The justices of the United States Supreme Court in the Troxel case held a parent has a constitutionally protected right to the care, custody, and control of his or her children.
The justices concluded a trial judge should defer to the wishes of the parents regarding grandparent visitation. However, a court of the first instance is also required to balance the best interests of the children as well.
There are four distinct situations in which a grandparent in Arizona has a right to visitation. Specifically, a grandparent may obtain rights to visitation with their grandchildren if:
- The parents’ marriage has been dissolved for at least three months;
- The parent of the child is missing (for at least three months) and has been reported missing officially;
- The parent of the child is deceased; or
- The child was born out of wedlock.
Grandparents Rights After Adoption of the Grandchildren
If the grandchild is adopted, all rights to grandparent visitation cease to exist unless the adoption was by a stepparent.
The only way a grandparent would be able to have visitation after an adoption of the grandchildren occurred would be if the new adoptive parents voluntarily permitted the grandparents to have visitation with the children.
Grandparents Rights to Custody of the Grandchildren
Grandparents could ask the court to give them custody of the grandchildren if the court finds both parents to be unfit to care for the children such that the children’s safety is in serious danger of physical or emotional harm. Even then, the court would have to consider the following factors:
1. The parties’ wishes;
2. The child’s wishes;
3. The interactions between and the relationship of the child to each of their parents and siblings and other significant persons in the parties’ lives;
4. The child’s potential adjustment to community, school, and home;
5. The mental and physical health of the parties involved; and
6. Which parent is more likely to allow the child to engage in frequent and continued contact with the other parent.
Arizona Court of Appeals Decision on Grandparents’ Visitation Rights in Arizona
Background Facts in the Grandparents Visitation Case Friedman v Roels
In the Arizona Court of Appeals case of Friedman v. Roels, the parties in the case include Mother and Petitioner/Appellant Ms. Friedman (“Friedman”), Father (“Roels”), and Paternal Grandparents, Intervenors/Appellees, Mr. and Mrs. Roels, (“Grandparents”), and minor children “M” born in 2003, and “R” born in 2005.
Friedman and Roels married in 2001 and have two common minor children “M” and “R”. The Friedman’s “informally” separated in March 2010, after an incident where allegedly Roels ‘went into a rage’ and was “admitted to a psychiatric facility with suicidal ideation”.
Friedman petitioned for legal separation in September 2010, and for dissolution of marriage in May 2011. Thereafter, each party signed a consent decree of dissolution of marriage in July 2011.
Since the parties’ voluntary separation, Roels (“Father”) has had supervised visitation with his two minor children, without maintaining any ‘legal decision’ making authority until August 2015, when he and Friedman mutually agreed that while Friedman would retain ‘final decision making authority,’ she would consult with Roels on non-emergency’ matters.
The children (“M” and “R”) had been engaged in counseling beginning in June 2010 and participated in “several family therapy sessions with Roels in 2012, 2013, and 2015”. Factors of Roels’ alleged prior abusive conduct towards the two minor children included, ‘yelling and losing his temper and ‘kicking [M] once’ and ‘holding him and grabbing him once.’
Grandparents File a Petition for Grandparent Visitation in Arizona
Paternal “Grandparents” filed a petition in April 2014 to obtain court-ordered visitation with their grandchildren, M and R. As of August 2015, the time set for this hearing, the Grandparents had not spoken to the children in four years, at Friedman’s insistence.
After a two-day hearing in August 2015, Grandparents testified that before the parents’ separation, they had enjoyed a close relationship with the children. This including attending M’s birth, meeting R a week after her birth, and frequently traveling to Tucson, Arizona, to attend the children’s school and sports activities and provide daycare for consecutive days at a time on at least two occasions.
Grandparents continued to send the grandchildren cards and gifts for the four years Grandparents were denied contact and parenting time by Friedman.
The lower court determined that the experts hired by the parties regarding parenting time for Grandparents were of “limited usefulness” because “there just wasn’t any apprehension or …tension” between Grandparents and either of the minor children.
Instead, the lower court ruled that after considering all relevant evidence, ‘including the demeanor and credibility of the parties,’ it was in the children’s best interests to have visitation with their grandparents.
Friedman contends the trial Court erred in awarding Grandparents visitation despite Friedman, as the children’s ‘only fit parent,’ having determined the visits were contrary to the best interests.
Grandparent Visitation in Arizona is Authorized by Arizona Revised Statute Section 25-409(C)
However, Arizona Revised Statute (A.R.S.) § 25-409(C) provides ‘a person other than a legal parent may petition the superior court for visitation with a child’ and, the court ‘may grant visitation rights during the child’s minority on a finding that the visitation is in the child’s best interests and . . . [f]or grandparent or great-grandparent visitation, the marriage of the parents has been dissolved for at least three months’.
The court further discussed (A.R.S.) § 25-409(E) stating: …that, in order to grant visitation to any statutorily qualified ‘third party’ the court shall give special weight to the legal parent’s opinion of what serves their best interests, and consider all relevant factors including:
1. The historical relationship, if any, between the child and person seeking visitation.
2. The motivation of the requesting party seeking visitation.
3. The motivation of the person objecting to visitation.
4. The quantity of visitation time requested and the potential adverse impact that visitation will have on the child’s customary activities.
Grandparents Visitation Rights in Arizona Cannot Substantially Infringe on the Parents’ Fundamental Parental Rights
Despite Friedman’s reliance on the Troxel, McGovern and Lambertus cases, this matter has granted grandparent visitation within the parameters of A.R.S. § 25-409 that ‘does not substantially infringe on parent’s fundamental rights.’ Lambertus v. Porter, 235 Ariz. 382, ¶ 29, 332 P.3d 608, 614 (App. 2014).
Arizona Law Provides a Rebuttable Presumption that a Fit Parent Acts in His or Her Child’s Best Interests in Decisions About Grandparent Visitation Rights
Also, the appellate court in this case first held, “the court should apply a rebuttable presumption that a ‘fit parent acts in his or her child’s best interest in decisions . . . concerning grandparent visitation’ and second, the court must give ‘some special weight’ to a fit parent’s determination of whether visitation is in the child’s best interest.’
The appellate court found these “Grandparents had a ‘significant relationship [that] was very positive with the children” until the parents separated, See § 25-409(E)(1), and since the relationship resumed in 2015, it had been “progressing well”.
Some of the positives included planning for weeks for each visitation and providing activities and structure to keep the children involved, which the children responded well to, offering “spontaneous hugs” at the end of some visits with Grandparents.
Law Requires a Judge to Give Special Weight to Parents’ Wishes About Grandparent Visitation in Arizona
Therefore, the appellate court held that Roels access and parenting time are significantly restricted, however, Roels was not found to be an unfit parent and therefore his ‘determination’ is also entitled to “special weight.”
This Appellate Court ruled that the lower court applied the proper standards in awarding visitation to Grandparents. It was also held that the court employed the fit-parent presumption and the factors set forth in § 25-409(E), and expressly accorded “special weight” to Friedman’s position.
There is sufficient evidence to support its conclusion that Grandparents have overcome the presumption, and does not bar them from exercising Grandparent visitation because Friedman was unable to show such visitation by the Grandparents would not be in the children’s best interests.
Arizona Grandparent Visitation Attorneys
If you have questions about grandparents’ rights in Arizona, you should seriously consider contacting the attorneys at Hildebrand Law, PC. Our Arizona child custody and family law attorneys have over 100 years of combined experience successfully representing clients in child custody and family law cases.
Our family law firm has earned numerous awards such as US News and World Reports Best Arizona Family Law Firm, US News and World Report Best Divorce Attorneys, “Best of the Valley” by Arizona Foothills readers, and “Best Arizona Divorce Law Firms” by North Scottsdale Magazine.
Call us today at (480)305-8300 or reach out to us through our appointment scheduling form to schedule your personalized consultation and turn your child custody or family law case around today.
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About the Author: Chris Hildebrand has over 26 years of Arizona family law experience and received awards from US News and World Report, Phoenix Magazine, Arizona Foothills Magazine and others. Visit https://www.hildebrandlaw.com.
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