Petitioners Troxel filed a plea to see their late son’s daughters. The mother of the daughters and respondent Granville objected to the Troxels’ request for a certain amount of visitation but did not reject all visits. Granville contested the Superior Court’s decision to grant her greater visitation than she had requested. The paternal grandparents presented the petition for visitation of the granddaughters. Although the mother agreed to some time, she declined the proposed longer visitation. The mother filed an appeal alleging that the court’s visitation order was illegal. Granville’s fundamental constitutional right to decide how to raise her daughters was not in any way protected by the court’s assumption that it is typically in the children’s best interests to spend time with the grandparents.
Therefore, the lower court issued a visitation order allowing two grandparents to see their grandchildren. In this case, the mother’s fundamental right to make choices about the care, custody, and control of her two daughters was violated by the visitation order. The Washington Superior Court did not assess the mother’s suitability as the custodial parent any significant weight. The Supreme Court ruled that a state court cannot award someone visiting privileges even when doing so would be in the child’s best interests if the parent of the child opposes them because doing so would violate the parent’s fundamental liberty interest in raising the child.
There is an assumption that good parents operate in their children’s best interests. As long as the parent is healthy, there is typically no cause for the State to intrude into the family’s privacy and cast doubt on that parent’s capacity to make the most excellent choices for the upbringing of that child. The trial court did not give Granville’s assessment of what was in her daughters’ best interests any extra weight. Instead, the court gave her the burden of proving that visitation would not be in her daughters’ best interests. The court must present the parent’s judgment with at least some extra weight. Finally, the Court ruled that the Act was unconstitutional because it was too broad, allowing anybody to request visitation at any time, and because it did not consider the presumption that a fit parent would act in the child’s best interests.
Reference
Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000) Justia Law. Web.