Welcome back to the Ox and Dine Law podcast. So today we're going to talk about under what circumstances grandparents can ask for visitation or possibly even custody in Georgia. And Christine, the law on this has changed. It's evolved quite a bit. Uh I know when I first started practicing over 20 years ago, which is weird to say. You've been practicing how long? >> Yeah, I mean since 2008 and I'm closely approaching that 20 years. So, we've been doing this a long time, but when we first started practicing, the standard for grandparents was much more lax. Um, and you would have situations where parents would get divorced and out of spite, one parent would just withhold the children from the paternal grandparents, for example, right? So, let's say you got mom and dad, paternal grandparents, which would be dad's parents, have been super close involved with the children. They're coming to the practices. They're coming to the games. They take them on an annual vacation. They call them on their birthdays. I mean, they are like second parents. And all of a sudden, the parents get divorced. They have a bitter divorce. And mom decides, you know what? Serves you right, Dad. I'm never going to let uh our kids speak to your parents again when they're with me out of spite. Right. And so under the old law, all a grandparent would have to show is that they had a close um and continuing bond and relationship with the children and that it would be in the best interest of the children for the grandparents to have visitation. And that literally was grandparents having set time during the week where they got visitation, where mom didn't have visitation, dad didn't have visitation. The grandparents actually got a certain number of days. And I say per week, it could have been on a monthly basis. can have been during the summer whatever but the grandparents actually got that separate time apart from both parents and it was actually we saw that quite commonly actually >> yeah I mean I would say it was common um most people you don't get that far to where it has to go to court um but we would see scenarios oftentimes especially if um I mean unfortunately if a parent is deceased or if they are just kind of you know the guy that's like I can't take this family anymore I'm out. I'm moving out of state. I'm going to do whatever. Um, but then sometimes it was just like, are you kidding me? Like, we've raised these kids. Like, you drop, we pick them up from school. We bring them home. We feed them. Y'all just come pick them up to sleep. Some nights you don't even do that. Um, they spend their weekends with us. They spend the summers with us. They're with us more than they're with you. And the fact that you two have decided to divorce, um, we still need to be able to make sure that the kids are okay. And that's more mostly what I would we saw >> or we would see situations where one parent died. >> Mhm. >> Or let's say they were incapacitated for whatever reason. Um you would say okay well you know my daughter just because she's passed away or because she's mentally incapacitated she's not going to get to see the kids obviously so they need to maintain a relationship with mom's side of the family and so therefore we should get visitation rights. You would see it under that scenario as well. >> Yeah. But I think the grandparents motives were almost always we still need to make sure the kids are okay. So most grandparents that I worked with, I would say their personal motives were very good. It wasn't, oh, I don't want them. Mom and dad shouldn't have the kids. It was simply I need to make sure they're okay. I've been the person in charge of them for the majority of this time. I need to make sure that they're okay. So I was actually a big proponent of it. I loved my grandparent visitation cases. I was extremely close with my grandparents growing up and luckily my parents' divorce had no effect on my relationship with my but if it had I personally would have been devastated if somehow someway through my parents divorce I no longer got to spend time with Paul and Nana uh like I'd have probably run away from home if I'm being honest with you little kid me would have run away from home >> and let's not go too far down this road because I'm sorry grandparents spoiler alert let me bust your bubble okay that was old law in 2018 it was actually found that the Georgia statute on grandparent visitation was in part unconstitutional. In other words, um grandparents are not automatically entitled to any visitation rights at least under that best interest standard. And so now we have a new law since 2018 which has a much higher burden on grandparents. And that new burden is basically to get grandparent visitation rights in Georgia, you have to show by clear and convincing evidence that the children would suffer either short-term or long-term emotional or physical harm if the grandparents didn't get visitation. And that's a high burden, which frankly is the same burden as getting custody. So, if you are a third party such as a grandparent and you want to try and get custody, which means you're asking for custody of these grandchildren over mom or dad, you have to show that same standard, which is short-term or long-term emotional or physical harm if you don't get custody. So, in practice, we don't really see grandparent visitation anymore. Because if you can prove that the children are going to suffer harm if you don't give visitation, how does getting the visitation prevent that harm? >> Prevent the harm. >> So you're going to just ask for custody under that situation, which is what we now see when grandparents seek rights. We still have people call us, hey, you know, they're not letting me see my grandchild. What can I do about it? And we have to tell them, well, unless you can show short-term or emotional, physical, or harm, then you can't get grandparent visitation. And if you can show that, we need to be talking about getting custody. >> That's right. And I think my personal perspective shifted when I learned the law changed as well. I had always put myself in the shoes of the child and my close relationship with my grandparents and thought to myself, "Oh gosh, I don't know what I would do if a judge had told me I can't hang out with Paul and Nana." However, I don't have children. So, I for the first time thought of it from a mother's perspective. And if I did have a child and I was not close with my parents, I don't agree with them. I don't like the way they raised me. I don't want them dealing with my kids. I don't want them having that influence. I mean, we have all the time people re like in adulthood remember traumas from their childhood that they have blocked or not remembered. And if I had uncovered one of those memories and I thought the person who caused the harm to me now maybe I a judge tells me I have to send my child to my worst enemy to the person I hate the most and or and no there's no way. So having understood that the law was calling you know taking into account constitutional rights of a parent and then for the first time really considering from the perspective of a parent I do agree with the law shift. I do not think that it would be fair for a judge just a random stranger in a black robe to tell me that my kid has to go hang out with somebody that I didn't approve. >> Yeah, I agree with it and I think the law was correct. And from a practical standpoint, if you're a grandparent listening to this, keep in mind as long as you have a good relationship with your son or daughter, and not all not all parents do. Sometimes grandparents don't have a good relationship with their son or daughter, but a lot of a lot of grandparents do. Um, you can see the child during your son or daughter parenting time. Or how often do you see the in-laws? Let's say that because of a divorce, wife and her parents have had a falling out, but former husband is still close with her parents. they get to come see on dad's time. You know that you can still coordinate with in-laws if you're aligned in that way. There's no violation there. The mom can't say you dad can't let my parents see them on your time. So if you have that in, you still have an opportunity to enjoy your grandkids. >> That's right. So see your grandchildren when they're with the parents. You just all you got to do is work it out with the parents. Say, "Hey, we're coming over this weekend. What are you doing? Let's have a cookout. Get together." But if you have a situation where you've got an harm situation, you've got physical or you've got emotional harm that's that's happening to your grandchildren and you need to step in and intervene. I don't want you to misconrue what we're saying. You can step in and intervene and seek custody is what we're going to tell you if you call our office. Short of that, uh, just reach out to mom or dad and say, "Hey, you know, we'd love to have y'all over this weekend. We're doing a cookout. Do you like barbecue or are you thinking more uh Chinese tonight?" Right? have the grandchildren over. Maybe they'll even let you take them on vacation. Again, there's nothing that prevents that as long as the parents agree. So, hopefully this has been helpful. Again, divorce can impact the entire family unit, including extended family members. Uh whether you're in the Atlanta area or near the Athens greater area, we're always happy to help with any of your family law matters. So, always reach out, give us a call. Be sure to keep following our podcast and subscribe. That way, you get notifications of all of our future episodes and you can stay in touch. and on top of the latest family law matters. We'll speak to you next time.