Adoption by Stepmother Doesn't Cut Off Visitation Rights of Paternal Grandmother

An interesting case, decided under an Ohio statute.

From In the Matter of L.D.R.S., decided last month by the Ohio Court of Appeals (Judge Matt Lynch, joined by Judges John Eklund and Robert Patton), but just noted last week in the Westlaw Bulletin:

L.D.R.S. was born on August 20, 2014, to unmarried parents.

On September 5, 2019, the juvenile court awarded John Snyder, the child's natural father and appellee, legal custody. At the same time, Zadunajsky, L.D.R.S.'s paternal grandmother, was granted companionship rights with the child {pursuant to R.C. 3109.12(A), which provides that "[i]f a child is born to an unmarried woman … the parents of the father … may file a complaint requesting that the court grant them reasonable companionship or visitation rights with the child."}

On December 20, 2021, Snyder filed a Motion for Termination or Modification of Visitation on the grounds that "the child has now been adopted [by his stepmother] and there [is] an intact family."

The lower court agreed that the stepmother's adopting the child cut off the grandmother's visitation rights under Ohio Rev. Code 3107.15(A)(1)(a), which provides:

Except with respect to a spouse of the petitioner and relatives of the spouse, to relieve the biological or other legal parents of the adopted person of all parental rights and responsibilities, and to terminate all legal relationships between the adopted person and the adopted person's relatives, including the adopted person's biological or other legal parents, so that … the adopted person thereafter is a stranger to the adopted person's former relatives for all purposes including inheritance and the interpretation or construction of documents, statutes, and instruments, whether executed before or after the adoption is decreed, which do not expressly include the person by name or by some designation not based on a parent or child or blood relationship.

But the court said that the statute didn't apply:

The opening words of the statute exempt "a spouse of the petitioner and the relatives of the spouse" from the effects of a final decree of adoption. Applied to the present case Snyder as spouse of the adopting stepparent and Zadunajsky as a relative of Snyder are exempt from those effects.

And the court distinguished In re Adoption of Ridenour (Ohio 1991), which held that:

… R.C. 3107.15 reflects the legislature's intent to find families for children. If preconditions are imposed on the adoptive parent-child relationship, or if adoptive parents are forced to agree to share parenting responsibilities with people whom they do not know, many potential adoptive parents will be deterred from adopting. Moreover, even where adoptive parents consent to visitation by biological relatives whom they do not know, such an arrangement is bound to be stressful for the child, particularly where the parties are not favorably disposed toward one another. In the absence of a legislative directive, we cannot sanction such a result. Consequently, we hold that the juvenile court abused its discretion in ordering that visitation with the biological grandparents shall continue post-adoption and that the trial judge erred in considering the grandparent's visitation rights in ruling on the adoption petitions.

Ridenour was inapplicable, the court held, because

The biological grandparents in Ridenour were not the relatives of a spouse of the petitioner, and this distinction is material [because it means that] … R.C. 3107.15(A)(1)(a) does not apply to Zadunajsky ….

Michael Georgiadis represents the grandmother.