Troxel v. Granville 2000

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Troxel v. Granville 2000

Petiotioners: Jenifer and Gary Troxel

Respondent: Tommie Granville

Petitioner's Claim: That the Washington Supreme Court's denial of their petition for visitation of their grandchildren was in error.

Chief Lawyer for Petitioner: Mark D. Olson

Chief Lawyer for Respondent: Catherine W. Smith

Justices for the Court: Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O'Connor, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, David H. Souter, Clarence Thomas.

Justices Dissenting: Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, John Paul Stevens

Date of Decision: June 5, 2000

Decision: Ruled in favor of Granville by stating that Washington statute, as applied to the case at hand, unconstitutionally infringed upon her right to care for her children.

Significance: Reaffirmed the constitutionally protected right to raise one's children free from overly evasive interference from government.

In today's society, it is difficult to describe the "average" American family. "While many children may have two married parents and grandparents who visit regularly, many other children are raised in single-parent households." In the latter case, both maternal (the parents of the mother) and paternal (the parents of the father) grandparents of the children may desire to have visitation. On June 5, 2000, the United States Supreme Court decided Troxel v. Granville, a case involving paternal grandparents seeking visitation of their two grandchildren.

Troxel involved an unmarried couple, Tommie Granville and Brad Troxel, who had two children together, Isabelle and Natalie. In 1991, Tommie and Brad's relationship ended. Two years later, Brad committed suicide. After Brad's death, his parents, Jenifer and Gary, desired to visit their grandchildren. They sought two weekends of overnight visitation per month and two weeks of visitation each summer. Though Tommie allowed some visitation, she did not allow visitation in the amount that Isabelle and Natalie's grandparents wanted. She prefered that the Troxels have only one night of visitation a month with no overnight stays. Because of the differences in opinion, Jenifer and Gary sued Tommie in Washington state court to obtain visitaiton of their grandchildren.

The Troxels sued Tommie under a Washington Revised Code, which permitted "any person," including grandparents, to petition a superior court for visitation rights "at any time." The statute also allowed a court to grant visitation whenever it might "serve the best interest of the child" regardless of whether there had been a change in circumstances of the children. The Troxels won their initial suit against Tommie in Washington Superior Court, and the judge entered an oral ruling (which was later put into writing). In finding for the Troxels, the superior court judge determined that visitation was in the best interest of Isabelle and Natalie. In particular, the court noted that "[t]he Petitioners [the Troxels] are part of a large, central, loving family, all located in this area, and the Petitioners can provide opportunities for the children in the areas of cousins and music." The court "took into consideration all factors regarding the best interest of the children and considered all the testimony."

Though the court decided that the children would benefit from spending time with their grandparents, it also determined that the children would benefit from spending time with their mother and stepfather's other six children. Thus, the court ordered visitation in the amount of one weekend per month, one week in the summer, and four hours on both of the grandparents birthdays. Tommie appealed from this decision to the Washington Court of Appeals. During this time, Tommie married Kelly Wynn, who eventually adopted both Isabelle and Natalie.

The Washington Court of Appeals reversed the lower court's decision and dismissed the Troxels' petition for visitation. The court determined that the Washington statute only allowed people to sue for visitation when there was a custody action pending. Since this was no such action, the court opined, the Troxels did not have standing (permission) to sue for visitation.

The Washington Supreme Court disagreed with the court of appeals' determination that the statute did not give the Troxels standing to sue. Instead, the Washington Supreme Court said, the statute's plain language authorized "any person" to petition a superior court for visitation rights "at any time." The Washington Supreme Court, however, agreed with the appellate court's ultimate conclusion that the Troxels could not obtain visitation of Isabelle and Natalie, as it violated the Constitution's fundamental right of parents to rear their children.

The Washington Supreme Court found two problems with the statute. First, the Constitution permitted a State to interfere with the right of parents to rear their children only to prevent harm or potential harm to a child. Since the statute provided no requirement that a petitioner show harm, it violated the Constitution. Second, the statute was too broad because it allowed "'any person' to petition for forced visitation of a child at 'any time' with the only requirement being that the visitation serve the best interest of the child." The Washington Supreme Court felt that a parent had the right to limit visitation with their children of third parties. In that court's opinion, parents, not judges, "should be the ones to choose whether to expose their children to certain people or ideas."

The Troxels appealed the Washington Supreme Court's decision to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari (agreed to hear the case), and affirmed the Washington Supreme Court's decision. Announcing the judgment of the Court, Justice O'Connor first pointed out that the government cannot interfere "with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests." Included in these rights and interests is a parent's ability to care for and control her children. According to Justice O'Connor, Supreme Court decisions such as Meyer v. Nebraska, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, and Prince v. Massachusetts, had long established the right of parents to "establish a home and bring up children" and "to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control." Indeed, Justice O'Connor added, "the custody, care and nurture of the child reside[s] first in the parents."

Given these facts, the Supreme Court decided that the Washington statute was too intrusive on a parent's right to determine what was in the best interest of her child. Specifically, the Supreme Court concluded that the statute "placed the best-interest determination solely in the hands of the [court]." Thus, if a judge merely disagreed with a parent as to whether visitation by a third party was in the best interest of a child, she could simply order that it occur. This, the Supreme Court opined, exceeded the bounds of the Constitution.

Moreover, the Superior Court Judge gave no "special weight at all to Granville's determination of her daughters' best interst." Instead, the judge "applied exactly the opposite presumption." He presummed that the grandparents' request for visitation should be granted "unless the children would be 'impact[ed] adversely.'" Indicative of this fact was the judge's statement: "I think [visitation with the Troxels] would be in the best interst of the children and I haven't been shown it is not in [the] best interest of the children."

Thus, the Supreme Court concluded that the visitation order in this case was an unconstitutional infringment of Tommie's fundamental right to make decisions concerning the care, custody and control of her children, Isabelle and Natalie. The Supreme Court, however, did not decide whether all visitation statutes were unconstitutional. Instead, it decided to allow state courts to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether or not a visitation staute unconstitutionally infringed upon the parental right.

Only three other Supreme Court Justices agreed with Justice O'Connor: Justice Rehnquist, Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer. Justices Souter and Thomas filed opinions concurring (agreeing) in the judgment. Both of these Justices felt that the ultimate decision of the Court was correct, but that the logic was incorrect. Justices Stevens, Scalia and Kennedy, however, dissented (disagreed), and filed separate opinions. Each of these Justices outlined why they felt the Court had come to the wrong conclusion, and laid out what he felt the correct outcome should be. Regardless of the split in the Court, one this is apparant from this decision, a parent's right to raise his children and to make decision for them can be violated by the government only with caution.

OTHER TYPES OF THIRD-PARTY VISITATION STATUTES

A ll fifty states have third-party visitation statutes. The statutes primarily allow petitions from persons who are: (1) stepparent; (2) grandparent - death of their child; (3) grandparent - child divorce; (4) (grand)parent of child born out of wedlock; and (5) any interested party. Only three states allow all of the above to petition the court for visitation. Twelve states allow only grandparents of either type to petition. Twelve additional states allow grandparents of either type and relatives of babies born out of wedlock to petition for visitation. The remaining allow various combinations of third parties to petition a court for visitation. In light of Troxel, the status of each of these statutes is uncertain.