[Robert S]

My first wife died and my new wife adopted my children, my first wife had been psychologically abused by her parents throughout her life and they have harrased my family since day one, now that their daugher (my first wife) is deceased they have sued us saying that they can ignore the rights of the adoptive mother and should have the children with "visitation" every other weekend, six weeks in the summer and half of every holiday. This would be incredibly psychologically destructive to the children. We are going to the California State Supreme court to protect the rights of adoptive step parents in California and as it is a Supreme Court issue it can effect the rights of Grandparents and Step parents who adopt and wish to decide who their adopted children associate without interference from the state forcing third party visitation upon them. Does the state have the right to interfere with a famly's decisions? Does anyone know of adoptive step parent cases which support the rights of adoptive step parents or adoptive grandparents to make good decisions for their children? In an ideal situation we would love to have the grandparents involved but just being a grandparent does not make someone a nice person, at least not in this case. Help.

[trunks888]

I agree with Julianna on this one.
One thing I would do also is learn the statel laws on adoption.
Not only your state but the one the grandparent lives in.

IF you need help finding websites with adoption laws let me know.
I'll see what I can do.
thanks take care and may God bless.

[Robert S]

I wish that Julianna and Trunks were correct but unfortunately Under the California Family Law code 3102 (a) If either parent of an unemancipated minor child is deceased, the children, siblings, parents, and grandparents of the deceased parent may be granted reasonable visitation with the child during the child during the child's minority upon a finding that the visitation would be in the best interest of the minor child.
(c) This section does not apply if the child has been adopted by a person other than a stepparent or grandparent of the child.

My wife and I are being sued by grandparents from the birth mother, who died 3 years ago and had been abused by these same grandparents, we will be applying to the Calif. Supreme Court to protect my wife's rights as an adoptive stepparent. Two fit parents under 3104 and if one is a stepparent can say no to third party visitation even if the other birth parent is alive but has disapeared. But under 3102 section (c) others can sue if a parent died. This makes some stepparents second class citizens with less rights than other stepparents.

If you are in this particular group of parents or grandparents who have adopted in California then your rights are in peril. If you can help our case, an amicus brief would be great, but just commiseration would help, then let us know. We will be filing with the court by August 4th, 2003. We have faith that we will win in the end but it has been 3 years of lawsuits and taken up lots of our family resources.

[cladd]

This is what I am talcing about in my other posts about Ohio's HB 144 if this legislation passes it will give third party visitation rights after step-parent adoption. Which by the way is as un-constitutional as grandparent visitation rights are in the first place, adding visitation after step-parent adoption treats step-parents differently than any other person who adopts. That is why I ased that all write in to Ohio legislators in opposition to HB 144, when Ohio or any other state passes a law such as this then other states are quic to follow, so it is not just Ohio's problem.


Grandma in Ohio