Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

This is a difficult question to answer without additional information. When you indicate the grandparents, are these your parents or the parents of the children's other parent? Are there any custody orders in place that give you primary residential custody of these children?

Without more information it's hard to say what your rights are in your particular case. However, I can give you some general advice. Let's assume for a moment that the other parent is out of the picture and otherwise uninvolved, with no legal rights to custody or visitation with the children. Let us also also assume that you have a court order that gives you sole custody of your children. In that situation, if any grandparents take the children and refuse to return them, I believe you can go to whatever school or location you find them, and pick them up the children and take them home.

I have dealt with such a situation before and unfortunately it became quite difficult and required legal action to keep the grandparents from coming back to try and seize the children on their own. I have also had situations where the grandparents will respond to a letter from a lawyer, or an invitation to sit down with the mother, father, or both parents to sort out their differences. Each case is different given the different circumstances of each case.

If there are no custody orders in place and there are no orders finding you to be an unfit parent, then again, I believe you have the legal right to go and take your children from wherever they are found. Often times, in the absence of court orders awarding custody to a specific person, if there is any controversy when picking up the children, the day care or school where the children are being picked up will only turn them over to the people who originally brought the children to the location. I would not cause any kind of disturbance if they insist on returning the children to the grandparents in that situation.. That is when you will need to go to court to take legal action to regain custody of your children.

There are many other ways to look at this, and again I need some basic facts to provide you a more specific answer to your particular situation. I would need to know what if any court orders are in place for yourself, the other parent, and the grandparents. I would need to know if there any restrictions in any court orders as to you or the other parent's time with the children. Additionally, how is it that the grandparents came to keep the children? Specifically why are they claiming they should keep the children?

Once I have additional information I may be able to provide you with a more specific and accurate answer about what you may expect.