Grandparents often form loving, involved relationships with children during their lives, and these relationships can be sadly interrupted by events such as divorce, death, or family estrangement.  When grandparents find themselves without any rights to visit with the children they love, they are sometimes able to take legal action.  With the help of a qualified family law attorney, visitation rights may be possible.

In the state of Oregon, grandparents have a statutory right to petition for custody or visitation under certain circumstances. In fact, any third party who has developed a close relationship with a minor child may have a right to custody or visitation.  However, over the years it has become harder and harder for grandparents or third parties to get custody or visitation rights awarded by the court. 

There are many legal hurdles a grandparent must meet to be awarded custody or visitation, and the process can be very complex and time consuming. For a grandparent to be granted custody or visitation with their grandchildren, they must first have “standing” to make a petition.  This means you must either have had:

• A “parent-child” relationship within the last six months (meaning that you provided food, clothing, shelter, care and other things normally provided by a parent), or
• An “ongoing personal relationship” with your grandchild for at least a year (meaning that you had regular contact with your grandchild, played with them, enjoyed them, and that they enjoyed you).

Oregon has a presumption that a parent always acts in the best interests of their child. After establishing your right to petition for visitation, you must then also show that this is not the case, and that the child’s custodial parents are not acting in the best interests of the child.  In custody cases, you must rebut this presumption by a preponderance of the evidence; for visitation cases, you must overcome that presumption by clear and convincing evidence.

Some of the factors a court examines in a petition for visitation include:

• Who the child’s primary caretaker has been,
• Whether or not circumstances detrimental to your grandchild exist if you are not granted parenting time,
• Whether or not the legal parent has fostered, encouraged, or consented to the relationship between you and your grandchild,
• Whether granting you parenting time would substantially interfere with the legal parent’s role as a custodial parent, and
• Whether or not the legal parent has unreasonably denied or limited contact between you and your grandchild.

When a grandparent is seeking custody and not merely visitation rights, the court will also look at whether or not the legal parent is unwilling or unable to adequately care for the child, in addition to the above factors. The factors the court looks into to determine if granting custody of the child to its grandparents are examples only.  You could show the existence of all the above factors and still not overcome the state’s presumption that the parent is acting in the best interests of their child.  You could also overcome that presumption by not showing the existence of any of these factors.  Courts are given great discretion in making these determinations.

If you are not a parent but are either concerned about the welfare of a child close to you or want to protect your right to be involved in their life, you may be entitled to petition the court for relief.  As an experienced Oregon family law attorney, Mr. Mizejewski will fight hard to obtain visitation rights or custody for the child you have been separated from.

Contact Us online or call 541-505-9872 to schedule a consultation.