Practice Areas
Grandparents’ Rights
A grandparent may play an important or even parental role in a child’s life, but that relationship alone does not automatically give the grandparent a legal right to custody or visitation in Texas.
Texas law gives substantial protection to a fit parent’s right to make decisions concerning the parent’s child. As a result, grandparent cases often begin with a threshold question that does not arise in an ordinary custody dispute: Does the grandparent have the legal right to ask the court for the requested relief? This is called standing.
FAQs
Can a Grandparent Obtain Visitation?
Although there are laws that allow for Grandparent’s to seek visitation, they are rarely applied. Parent’s are afforded a constitutional right to their children, especially if they are considered “fit” parents. The risk in filing for visitation is that the grandparent destroys the relationship permanently, and loses in court.
Texas law allows grandparent access in limited circumstances and imposes requirements that must be satisfied before a court can override a parent’s decision.
The analysis may include the status of the grandparent’s own child – the parent of the grandchild – as well as whether denying possession or access would significantly impair the child’s physical health or emotional well-being.
This is a higher hurdle than simply showing that continued contact with a loving grandparent would be beneficial.
Can a Grandparent Seek Custody?
Seeking conservatorship is different from seeking visitation.
In some circumstances, a grandparent may have standing to seek managing conservatorship. Most commonly, the grandparent has had possession of the child for more than six months or the child’s circumstances would be significantly impaired without court assistance. The facts can be especially significant when grandparents have actually cared for a child for an extended but intermittent period or when the grandparent’s own child is the source of the instability.
Standing rules are technical and fact-specific. Who cared for the child, for how long, when that care occurred, where the child lived, who filed the pleading first, and the status of existing court orders can all matter.
What Evidence Is Important?
Why Are Grandparent Cases Difficult?
Grandparents are often placed in situations where they feel they have no choice but to sue their own children to protect their grandchildren. The law does allow for that but judges will be extremely protective of the parent’s rights. Oftentimes relationships are truly destroyed and sadly, it may be justified in order to protect small children.
On the other hand, society is seeing grandparents be increasingly cut from being in their grandchildren’s lives. Texas law does not aim to help grandparents get back in. In fact, in this situation, grandparents are better off waiting, praying and not giving up to try organic methods.
The first step is therefore not deciding who would provide the better home. It is determining what claim Texas law permits the grandparent to bring and what must be proven.
Our role is to examine the family’s history, existing orders, caregiving arrangement, and available evidence before determining whether intervention in an existing case, a new conservatorship proceeding, a request for access, or another legal arrangement is appropriate.