"Custody hearing"

[Intact family]

For those interested, here is the latest reported opinion of a GPV case in Maryland. Some notable quotes are:

"Parents and grandparents do not stand on the same legal footing with respect to visitation. A parent’s right to visitation is rooted in a fundamental constitutional liberty interest, while any right to visitation possessed by grandparents 'is solely of statutory origin'.”

and:

"The bar for exceptional circumstances is high precisely because the circuit court should not sit as an arbiter in disputes between fit parents and grandparents over whether visitation may occur and how often. In the instant case, the fit parents chose to end contact between their children and the paternal grandparents because of a personal dispute between the parties. Although the trial court may, and did, disagree with this choice, it must defer to the parents’ wishes absent proof of significant deleterious effect caused by the cessation of visitation. No such proof was offered."

[B]www.courts.state.md.us/opinions/cosa/2010/2080s09.pdf[/B]

 

[Tex78704]

You are way out of line here. You owe the OP an apology. In fact, you owe 99% of the parents in this country who have gotten sued for gpv an apology.

These suits are not about manipulation, payback or revenge on the part of the parents. The parents are not the agressors. They are about a sense of entitlement on the part of the grandparents, and in grand measure, an attempt on the part of the grandparents to control the parents of their grandchildren.

All that 99% of the grandparents would have had to do is "play nice", and it never would have been necessary for them to sue.

Rather than 99%, I believe that I only owe about 20% of parents an apology, and those I do apologize too. I have just seen many instances of children being anngry at their parents, and their punishment to their parents is to withdraw the grandchildren completely. This is often a very emotionally controlling and effective tool, and much more common than we would like to accept.

Just an opinion offered with a grain of salt, as I also take most 'personal opinions' by seniors here that depart from the legal issues at hand with a grain of salt.

Stating one has direct experience with thousands of GPV cases is a mighty bold remark, that would be good cause for one to question the accuracy of. Even the best and busiest attorneys cannot attest to experience with more than dozens or just maybe even hundreds of GPV cases, and certainly not more than dozens of succesfully filed appeals. If you have experience with pro se cases, I would be hard pressed to believe even one single case was overturned on appeal, as I have yet to find a case where a pro se parent won an appeal to a state court of appeals on custody matters.

 

[LdiJ]

Rather than 99%, I believe that I only owe about 20% of parents an apology, and those I do apologize too. I have just seen many instances of children being anngry at their parents, and their punishment to their parents is to withdraw the grandchildren completely. This is often a very emotionally controlling and effective tool, and much more common than we would like to accept.

Just an opinion offered with a grain of salt, as I also take most 'personal opinions' by seniors here that depart from the legal issues at hand with a grain of salt.

Stating one has direct experience with thousands of GPV cases is a mighty bold remark, that would be good cause for one to question the accuracy of. Even the best and busiest attorneys cannot attest to experience with more than dozens or just maybe even hundreds of GPV cases, and certainly not more than dozens of succesfully filed appeals. If you have experience with pro se cases, I would be hard pressed to believe even one single case was overturned on appeal, as I have yet to find a case where a pro se parent won an appeal to a state court of appeals on custody matters.

I am not an attorney. I was part of a very large parent's rights activist group prior to and for a few years after Troxel. I am still part of a smaller, private group. We submitted one of the Amicus Briefs in Troxel and have worked closely with some of the foremost legal minds in the US on this particular topic.

Over an 18 year period I have worked with thousands of families.

No, of course our members did not attempt appeals without an attorney. However, their costs were minimized because the best darned appeals attorney in the US on the subject of gpv, provided tons of materials to their attorneys, free of charge.

In addition, many of our members did go pro se at the trial court level. It was often more effective than using attorneys who wanted to push them into the parent vs parent mode, to please the judges.

You started out pretending to be helpful to the OP in this thread but you have definitely shown your true colors.

 

[Tex78704]

For those interested, here is the latest reported opinion of a GPV case in Maryland. Some notable quotes are:

"Parents and grandparents do not stand on the same legal footing with respect to visitation. A parent’s right to visitation is rooted in a fundamental constitutional liberty interest, while any right to visitation possessed by grandparents 'is solely of statutory origin'.”

This is interesting. If you can, please cite the source of this quote that is reportedly in a published Opinion of an appeals court.

Can you name the two anti-GPV organizations which you refer to? Any organization that can draw 'thousands' of similar type cases early in the litigation process must be pretty high profile. What is the link between organizations such as yours and the parent sitting in a courtroom in small town USA? Common complaints among attorneys involved in groups advocating particular causes suggest that it is very difficult to learn about cases before it is too late to be of much use, because folks just do not know to contact them in time.

In addition, many of our members did go pro se at the trial court level. It was often more effective than using attorneys who wanted to push them into the parent vs parent mode, to please the judges.

This is a bit hard to swallow. Most only go to trial pro se because they do not have the money to afford an attorney. Given the much higher costs of appeals, the timing constraints for appeals following trial, and the fact most pro se litigants make way too many mistakes at trial with procedural and preservation of error issues that cannot be "worked around", a comeback in a state court of appeals after losing as a pro se at trial is far fetched.

I would appreciate at least a couple of citations indicating that a pro se who defended themselves at trial, later retained an attorney and won in a state court of appeals.

You started out pretending to be helpful to the OP in this thread but you have definitely shown your true colors.

This is not true, and is a bit of an emotional based response. I never blindly assume anyone asking for help is on the morally right side, because half the time I would probably be wrong. There are always three sides to every dispute.

 

[Intact family]

Originally Posted by Intact family
For those interested, here is the latest reported opinion of a GPV case in Maryland. Some notable quotes are:

"Parents and grandparents do not stand on the same legal footing with respect to visitation. A parent’s right to visitation is rooted in a fundamental constitutional liberty interest, while any right to visitation possessed by grandparents 'is solely of statutory origin'.”

This is interesting. If you can, please cite the source of this quote that is reportedly in a published Opinion of an appeals court.

Tex,

At the bottom of my last post I posted the URL to the reported opinion, where you can read it in its entirety. Simply copy and paste the URL into your browser and it will take you right to it. The quote you're referring to is at the bottom of page 9. There's nothing controversial about that quote, as they're simply saying that parents have an inherent, constitutional right to the care, custody and control of their children. Grandparents have no such constitutional rights to their grandchildren. I don't think there's anyone who would dispute that, no matter which side of the fence you're on.

 

[LdiJ]

This is interesting. If you can, please cite the source of this quote that is reportedly in a published Opinion of an appeals court.

Can you name the two anti-GPV organizations which you refer to? Any organization that can draw 'thousands' of similar type cases early in the litigation process must be pretty high profile. What is the link between organizations such as yours and the parent sitting in a courtroom in small town USA? Common complaints among attorneys involved in groups advocating particular causes suggest that it is very difficult to learn about cases before it is too late to be of much use, because folks just do not know to contact them in time.

This is a bit hard to swallow. Most only go to trial pro se because they do not have the money to afford an attorney. Given the much higher costs of appeals, the timing constraints for appeals following trial, and the fact most pro se litigants make way too many mistakes at trial with procedural and preservation of error issues that cannot be "worked around", a comeback in a state court of appeals after losing as a pro se at trial is far fetched.

I would appreciate at least a couple of citations indicating that a pro se who defended themselves at trial, later retained an attorney and won in a state court of appeals.

This is not true, and is a bit of an emotional based response. I never blindly assume anyone asking for help is on the morally right side, because half the time I would probably be wrong. There are always three sides to every dispute.

Tex, I am going to make only a few more comments and then I am going to be finished with you. You clearly have an agenda here.

Our group's pro se litigants very rarely needed to appeal. They had good legal guidance.

Read the Amicus Briefs for Troxel and you will figure out the large group easily enough. The smaller group is private, and will remain so.

As far as finding the parents near the beginning of their cases? Easy. Ever heard of the internet? Every single one of our members came to us through the internet...through their own queries regarding gpv.

We were fairly high profile in the "world". Many of our members were interviewed on local and national news shows during the Troxel hearings and right after the case was published.

 

[Tex78704]

...At the bottom of my last post I posted the URL to the reported opinion, where you can read it in its entirety. Simply copy and paste the URL into your browser and it will take you right to it. The quote you're referring to is at the bottom of page 9. There's nothing controversial about that quote, as they're simply saying that parents have an inherent, constitutional right to the care, custody and control of their children. Grandparents have no such constitutional rights to their grandchildren. I don't think there's anyone who would dispute that, no matter which side of the fence you're on.

Thanks, I would not dispute that argument either. It is unfortunate that there is still quite the opposite view in some states.

Spouting the success rate of two organizations in terms of "thousands of people" helped, and that almost none of these people lost in family court trials as pro se's with the help of these organizations, while refusing to divulge the names of these organizations, would only lead one to believe that the claims are way oversold, if not false. I do not believe that even one of your alleged pro se litigants who lost in trial court ever made a comeback in a state court of appeals, and you clearly implied there were many.

And I agree that this discussion should end, although what agenda you suggest I may have is unclear. However, your agenda is clear in you hardline anti-GPV stance, to the point of suggesting that any attorney who would recommend his client mediate an equitable solution is just plain wrong. And that in this case the parent should continue their suit as a pro se. There is some misguided altruism here.. which appears to be far less pro-parents than it is anti-gpv.

 

[Intact family]

Thanks, I would not dispute that argument either. It is unfortunate that there is still quite the opposite view in some states.

Spouting the success rate of two organizations in terms of "thousands of people" helped, and that almost none of these people lost in family court trials as pro se's with the help of these organizations, while refusing to divulge the names of these organizations, would only lead one to believe that the claims are way oversold, if not false. I do not believe that even one of your alleged pro se litigants who lost in trial court ever made a comeback in a state court of appeals, and you clearly implied there were many.

And I agree that this discussion should end, although what agenda you suggest I may have is unclear. However, your agenda is clear in you hardline anti-GPV stance, to the point of suggesting that any attorney who would recommend his client mediate an equitable solution is just plain wrong. And that in this case the parent should continue their suit as a pro se. There is some misguided altruism here.. which appears to be far less pro-parents than it is anti-gpv.

Tex,

I think you misunderstood something here. We are not pro se and never have been....we have an attorney and so does she.

 

[LdiJ]

Thanks, I would not dispute that argument either. It is unfortunate that there is still quite the opposite view in some states.

Spouting the success rate of two organizations in terms of "thousands of people" helped, and that almost none of these people lost in family court trials as pro se's with the help of these organizations, while refusing to divulge the names of these organizations, would only lead one to believe that the claims are way oversold, if not false. I do not believe that even one of your alleged pro se litigants who lost in trial court ever made a comeback in a state court of appeals, and you clearly implied there were many.

And I agree that this discussion should end, although what agenda you suggest I may have is unclear. However, your agenda is clear in you hardline anti-GPV stance, to the point of suggesting that any attorney who would recommend his client mediate an equitable solution is just plain wrong. And that in this case the parent should continue their suit as a pro se. There is some misguided altruism here.. which appears to be far less pro-parents than it is anti-gpv.

Any attorney with any true experience in gpv will tell you that the worst thing that a parent can do is come to a mediated agreement. The parent needs the judge to make a ruling based on the actual merits of the case.

Every parent I have ever known, that came to a mediated agreement in a third party case, bitterly regretted it later.

You are making the kind of arguments that we used to hear from the grandparent lobby groups back in the late 90's, before Troxel was decided.

Also, you are twisting my words quite a bit. I don't debate with people who do not do so cleanly.

 

[Tex78704]

LdiJ,

Reckon we both feel like our words have been twisted and convoluted, and we each have room to feel "hey, that is not what I meant at all...".

While I disagree with you on some points and would rather have argued the relative merits of these with less antagonism, my right back at ya attitude didn't help matters.

I apologize for any bad feelings that resulted from this discussion between us.

 

[Intact family]

Our master's hearing is scheduled for three hours in a few weeks. Grandma's lawyer filed a motion for a full day hearing since there will be at least a total of 10 witnesses and our attorney agreed. The court today denied the request. Grandma's attorney successfully delayed our motion to dismiss hearing for five weeks so maybe the court looked at that and said once is enough? I don't know but the petition was filed in December and all we've had so far was the MTD hearing which was no more than 15 minutes. So in a way I'm glad the court denied the request because I want this case to go forward. The sooner the better.

Does three hours seem long enough for the master to decide with that many witnesses, or is there a good chance it won't be enough time and we'll have to come back another day to finish up?

 

[Proserpina]

LdiJ,

Reckon we both feel like our words have been twisted and convoluted, and we each have room to feel "hey, that is not what I meant at all...".

While I disagree with you on some points and would rather have argued the relative merits of these with less antagonism, my right back at ya attitude didn't help matters.

I apologize for any bad feelings that resulted from this discussion between us.

Y'know, I haven't liked your attitude either (and obviously you aren't my biggest fan ) but I really appreciate your response to LdiJ here.

Thank you

 

[mistoffolees]

Our master's hearing is scheduled for three hours in a few weeks. Grandma's lawyer filed a motion for a full day hearing since there will be at least a total of 10 witnesses and our attorney agreed. The court today denied the request. Grandma's attorney successfully delayed our motion to dismiss hearing for five weeks so maybe the court looked at that and said once is enough? I don't know but the petition was filed in December and all we've had so far was the MTD hearing which was no more than 15 minutes. So in a way I'm glad the court denied the request because I want this case to go forward. The sooner the better.

It's outside your control, but given the choice, I'd go the other way. While it's annoying to have things up in the air, the longer you are going with no orders (and presumably not letting the kids see grandma), the less of a case she has. Assuming the kids continue to do well in school, etc, then it's hard to make a case for them being damaged. And the status quo (not seeing grandma) becomes even more firmly entrenched.

However, I understand the desire to have it over with. It sounds like most of the things have gone in your favor so far. Their expert is a minor concern, but since their expert will not have any contact with the kids and yours has, that should go in your favor. It looks like very good odds for you, although you never know when a judge will do something boneheaded like "grandma didn't really establish harm, but giving her some limited visitation won't harm the kids so I'm going to allow it". That would likely be reversible on appeal, but that's time consuming and expensive.

That's why I think that any further delays actually work in your favor.

 

[ecmst12]

If parents want to remove access to grandkids because grandparents ticked them off, whether for good reason or bad, THAT IS THEIR RIGHT. Parents have the right to decide who spends time with their children, period. Any joe off the street can't come in and sue for visitation, and grandparents are legally no better then any joe off the street.

 

[LdiJ]

Y'know, I haven't liked your attitude either (and obviously you aren't my biggest fan ) but I really appreciate your response to LdiJ here.

Thank you

I appreciate it as well. It was well done on your part.