Legal Question in Family Law in Indiana
My husband and I have full legal custody of two young girls, ages, 6, almost 7, and 9. Their great-grandparents, which are also my husband�s uncle and aunt, had full legal custody of them for 5 years prior to them signing over custody to us this past August. This due to their ages and health. These great-grandparents had the children taken away from their parents, due to the parents not being fit. The parents have never been married to each other. Both parents have been in trouble with the law, in and out of jail. In fact at present time, the father is in prison in Oklahoma. He had been in prison in Texas, got out on parole, left Texas, was picked up in Oklahoma with drug paraphernalia in the vehicle he was driving, and now is serving time there. Most all their convictions have been drug related. i.e. paraphernalia to make drugs with intent to sell, etc. Now, the girls' grandfather, my husband's cousin, the son of this same aunt and uncle, is threatening to take us to court as he wants the right to take the girls on a trip out of state. He is stating that "grandparents have rights too". He is the girls� mother�s father, their maternal grandfather. Now we have never prevented him from seeing the girls. We have allowed him to pick them up, take them out to movies, to eat, even allowed the girls to stay overnight with him and the great�grandparents at the great-grandparents house on several occasions, as he was living there with them off and on this past several months. We have informed them all of the girls' school events, their ball games, etc. thus allowing them all to be involved and to see the girls. My question is, what are his rights? Does he have any right to take them out of our home state of Indiana? The other thing is that we do not receive any support for these children. None of these people, nor the children�s parents pay anything for the girls. They have not helped financially in any way. Now he wants to take them to Disney World in Florida for a week this summer. We are not comfortable with him taking them out of state, that far away for a week or so. For one thing, we believe most of what he does with them is for himself, to make him look and feel good. Not really for the girls. Another thing is that he never raised ANY of his own children, including the girl�s mother. His parents, the great-grandparents referred to above, raised her. Also, we are not absolutely sure that he wouldn�t attempt to meet up with the girls� mother in Florida to let her see them and for them to see her. Again, we feel, to make them all think of him as great. We allow the girls to talk to their mother on the phone several times a week. In our order if she were here in Indiana and wanted to see the girls, she could have supervised visitation at our discretion. And still another thought is that the girls are covered under our health insurance. With us having full legal custody, we believe we have the decision making rights. Our thought is, what if something happens to one of them while they would be gone out of state? Then one of us would have to leave our job, have the expense of traveling down there, the expense of our stay while there, in order to be there to make decisions regarding their health, etc. That does not seem a fair request of us. We do not have unlimited income/disposable income.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Based on the information provided, and without having looked at any court orders, it appears that the grandfather would have "reasonable visitation" rights. He would have to petition the court. The court would determine whether an-out-of-state visitation would be in the best interest of the children in light of all of the circumstances.