Troxel v. Granville 2000
| Author | Daniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw |
| Pages | 369-373 |
Page 369
Petiotioners: Jenifer and Gary Troxel
Respondent: Tommie Granville
Petitioner's Claim: That the Washington Supreme Court's denial of their petition for visitation of their grandchildren was in error.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner: Mark D. Olson
Chief Lawyer for Respondent: Catherine W. Smith
Justices for the Court: Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O'Connor, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, David H. Souter, Clarence Thomas.
Justices Dissenting: Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, John Paul Stevens
Date of Decision: June 5, 2000
Decision: Ruled in favor of Granville by stating that Washington statute, as applied to the case at hand, unconstitutionally infringed upon her right to care for her children.
Significance: Reaffirmed the constitutionally protected right to raise one's children free from overly evasive interference from government.
In today's society, it is difficult to describe the "average" American family. "While many children may have two married parents and grandparents who visit regularly, many other children are raised in single-parent households." In the latter case, both maternal (the parents of the mother)
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and paternal (the parents of the father) grandparents of the children may desire to have visitation. On June 5, 2000, the United States Supreme Court decided Troxel v. Granville, a case involving paternal grandparents seeking visitation of their two grandchildren.
Troxel involved an unmarried couple, Tommie Granville and Brad Troxel, who had two children together, Isabelle and Natalie. In 1991, Tommie and Brad's relationship ended. Two years later, Brad committed suicide. After Brad's death, his parents, Jenifer and Gary, desired to visit their grandchildren. They sought two weekends of overnight visitation per month and two weeks of visitation each summer. Though Tommie allowed some visitation, she did not allow visitation in the amount that Isabelle and Natalie's grandparents wanted. She prefered that the Troxels have only one night of visitation a month with no overnight stays. Because of the differences in opinion, Jenifer and Gary sued Tommie in Washington state court to obtain visitaiton of their grandchildren.
The Troxels sued Tommie under a Washington Revised Code, which permitted "any person," including grandparents, to petition a superior court for visitation rights "at any time." The statute also allowed a court to grant visitation whenever...
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