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.

Comments

[TwelveInchPianist]

Sounds like a violation of the parent's right to raise their children as they see fit.

[ReaderY]

But another case originating in Ohio, Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494 (1977), suggests that as a constitutional matter grandparents have, or at least can have, rights too. So it appears states have at least some leeway to decide how to allocate them.

[TwelveInchPianist]

I guess, but unless I missed it, the grandmother wasn't exercising her rights over the objection of the parents.

[ReaderY]

What makes this case of interest? The decision was narrow and controlled by the specific wording of a specific Ohio statute, which the Ohio Court of Appeals found didn’t apply to relatives of the spouse of the adopting parent.

Courts decide statutory fine points every day. Why this particular one for mention in this blog?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Why would they want to cut off her visitation rights? Possibly the real story didn’t make it into the briefs.

As You Like It, II.vii.29

[TwelveInchPianist]

Maybe they're bad people. Maybe the grandparents are bad people.

But most likely, the parents wanted to raise their kid and choose whether or not the kid could see the grandparents without court supervision.

Court supervised anything sucks.

[David Nieporent]

I agree with this in the abstract — I can't imagine ever objecting to my dad spending time with my kids ("Take my kids — please!"), but I would not want him to have a legal, enforceable right to do so — but the very fact that grandma opposed what should've been a routine termination suggests that there's some issue.

[Bob from Ohio]

"very fact that grandma opposed what should’ve been a routine termination suggests that there’s some issue"

Perfectly normal for a grandmother to want to maintain contact with her grandchild.

The odd thing is the motion to terminate. A decent father would want his child to have a grandmother relationship.

[David Nieporent]

.

Perfectly normal for a grandmother to want to maintain contact with her grandchild.

The odd thing is the motion to terminate. A decent father would want his child to have a grandmother relationship.

Terminating visitation rights does not mean terminating visitation.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Terminating visitation rights does not mean terminating visitation."

Were you born last night? If the dad was satisfied with the arrangement he would not have filed themotion. He means to cut her off from contact.

[Lee Moore]

A decent father would want his child to have a grandmother relationship.

Might that not depend on the decency of the grandmother ?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"but the very fact that grandma opposed what should’ve been a routine termination suggests that there’s some issue."

Yeah, I suppose the fact that she filed for the rights when the dad had custody seems strange as well. This law seems designed to address situations where the mother has custody.

[John F. Carr]

Does Troxel v. Granville apply here?

[ReaderY]

Troxel v. Granville struck down a law that permitted any 3rd party to challenge parental rights.

This case is obviously different. In this case the parents petitioned to dissolve her existing visitation rights. She was a direct party to the case, not a 3rd party. And she was a challengee, not a challenger.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Connecting the dots of the items the proprietor chooses to mention at this blog generates a strange, telling picture.

[TwelveInchPianist]

I wonder if there's an as-applied EP violation here. If this guy were a woman, his mom wouldn't have visitation rights.

[Lee Moore]

Presumably Snyder can reverse this defeat simply by getting a dee-vorce from the stepmother. Also avoiding the marriage tax penalty - what's not to like ?

How d'ya like them apples, grandma ?

[KenveeB]

How would that change anything? It's the father's mother who's the grandmother at issue.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Seems like both courts got it wrong. The grandma's visitation rights were based on the kid's relationship to the biological mom and her status as an unmarried woman.

But now that the kid's legal relationship to the biological mom has been terminated and the stepmom is the legal mom of the kid, the grandparent visitation statute should no longer apply.

[Lee Moore]

I don't follow. There are five players here :

the kid
the biological Mom
the biological Dad
the step Mom
Grandma

Grandma is Dad's Mom. The step Mom is the spouse of Dad.

The "petitioner" refers to the petitioner for adoption, which is the step Mom.

Grandma's rights derive from

(1) the fact that the bio Mom was unmarried - this is a qualifying condition for the whole game. But it's a historical fact - it's not something that can be changed by marriages or adoptions. Was the person who gave birth to the child an unmarried woman or not ? She was. Move to step 2 :
(2) Grandma gets visitation rights if she is "parents of the father." She is. She's actual Dad's actual Mom.
(3) on adoption, all bets are off "Except with respect to a spouse of the petitioner and relatives of the spouse" - well the spouse of the petitioner (aka step Mom) is Dad. Grandma is a relative of Dad. So she falls into the "except" bit.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Well, the statute says the effect of an adoption is "To create the relationship of parent and child between petitioner and the adopted person, as if the adopted person were a legitimate blood descendant of the petitioner, for all purposes..."

" the fact that the bio Mom was unmarried – this is a qualifying condition for the whole game. But it’s a historical fact – it’s not something that can be changed by marriages or adoptions."

But that's what adoptions do, right? They create legal fictions that purport to change historical facts.

Take the case of a kid born to an unmarried woman and given up for adoption at birth to another couple. Do you think the statute gives the adoptive paternal grandparents visitation rights?

[Lee Moore]

I'm doubtful that this legal fiction:

“To create the relationship of parent and child between petitioner and the adopted person, as if the adopted person were a legitimate blood descendant of the petitioner, for all purposes…”

is sufficient to legally amend the historical fact that the "child is born to an unmarried woman." (Of course we don't know whether step Mom was married or unmarried at the time the child was born, but let's stipulate that she was married otherwise substituting her as the person who gave birth makes no difference.) You can be a deemed blood descendant without being deemed to have popped out of the adopting Mom's uterus - eg the kid is a blood descendant of Grandma, but Grandma is not its birth mother. For step Mom to be substituted as the deemed person who gave birth would seem to me to require more than the status of deemed blood ancestor.

But anyway doesn't the generality of rule (2) which you quote, fall to the specificity of rule (1)(a) quoted above. The specific rule has a big fat hairy explicit exception which covers Grandma.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Well, no one is claiming that grandma is not legal grandma.

Under your interpretation, adoptive paternal grandparents may or may not have visitation rights depending on the martial status of the birth mother, which seems like an absurdity.

[Lee Moore]

This is a statute. Some statutes have absurd results.

So for example, this statute grants natural grandparental visitation rights to the father's parents if the mother is unmarried, but not if she's married.

What's could be absurder than that ?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Your interpretation would also put 3109.12(A) in direct conflict with 3107.15(A)(1)(a).

Part of 3109.12(A) not quoted above says, " If a child is born to an unmarried woman, the parents of the woman and any relative of the woman may file a complaint requesting the court of common pleas...to grant them reasonable companionship or visitation rights with the child."

Under your interpretation, the visitation rights of the relatives of the biological mother would survive an adoption, in contradiction to the adoption statute.

[Lee Moore]

Still not following. I'm not saying that 3107.15(A)(1)(a) cannot trump visitation rights arising under 3109.12(A), I'm just saying that the words of 3107.15 do not seem to me to be specific enough to deem the child to have been born to anyone other than its actual (unmarried) mother, for the purposes of 3109.12 .

"to terminate all legal relationships between the adopted person and the adopted person's relatives" achieves the necessary trumping.

Unless the exception to 3107.15(A)(1)(a) applies. In the actual case, it does. In your hypo, we don't know. You need to specify whether the bio mother's parents are "the spouse of the petitioner [or] relatives of the spouse." So, suppose the bio mother is Annie. The child is adopted by Olga, who is married to Ray, Annie's brother. In these circumstances Annie's parents are relatives of the spouse of the petitioner and so fall within the exception. But if Olga and Ray were unrelated to Annie's parents, the parents wouldn't fall into the exception.

As I say, you are the one expecting common sense, not me. I find the whole idea of granting grandparents visitation rights absurd ab initio, and even more so when they are conditional on the marital status of the mother.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"“to terminate all legal relationships between the adopted person and the adopted person’s relatives” achieves the necessary trumping."

That's inconsistent with your interpretation of 3109.12(A).

To clarify my hypo: Say a child is born to an unmarried woman and adopted by a stranger couple, no other relation to the child or the mother.

Under your reading of 3109.12(A), the relatives of the birth mother would retain visitation rights (via the wording that's ellipsed over in the OP). But that's inconsistent with 3107.15.

[Lee Moore]

Nope, still not getting it. Your clarified hypo makes it clear that the exception at the start of 3107.15 does not apply, therefore 3107.15 does apply “to terminate all legal relationships between the adopted person and the adopted person’s relatives”

3107.15 is necessarily inconsistent with 3109.12, because it is a deeming rule overriding the natural relationships referred to in 3109.12. But it only applies if, and to the extent that, the exception to it does not.

In your hypo the exception does not apply. In the actual case, it does.

[TwelveInchPianist]

From the op:

This legal reality is very frustrating to the court because the main issue should be what is in the best interest of the subject minor child.

The court's frustrated because he doesn't have the ability to substitute his own judgement for that of an intact family about what's in the best interest of their child. Sickening.

[rloquitur]

Sickening isn't the right word--it's the quotidian arrogance of judges.

[Nameless But Highly Opinionated]

"11th District Court of Appeals"
There are 12 "courts of appeal" in Ohio, not one with 12 districts. Pet peeve.

[rloquitur]

Here's the problem: now the parents of the kid are subject to court enforcement of rights, and that can be very problematic. Kid has sports commitments, too bad, gotta see grandma. Parents want kids to go to sleepaway camp for the whole summer, gotta see grandma. Family wants to move to faraway state, court might have something to say about that.

Courts can be super intrusive. Ever hear of court orders against women who are forced to trundle kids to prisons so the father can have visitation. Appalling.

[KenveeB]

I can understand granting paternal grandparents visitation rights when the unmarried mother has custody, but when the father has custody, what on earth is the point of this statute? If it's supposed to allow connection to the paternal side of the family, that's already created by the actual father!

[Bob from Ohio]

"the child has now been adopted [by his stepmother]"

Less snark, more reading.