Fischer v. Fischer, 88-03314
| Decision Date | 09 June 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 88-03314,88-03314 |
| Citation | 544 So.2d 1079,14 Fla. L. Weekly 1403 |
| Parties | 14 Fla. L. Weekly 1403 Christina M. FISCHER, n/k/a Christina M. Price, Appellant, v. Michael L. FISCHER, and Everett Reihing and Leota Reihing, Appellees. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Sharon D. McIntyre, Sebring, for appellant.
Anthony A. Accorsi, Sebring, for appellees Reihings.
The narrow issue presented for our consideration in this dissolution matter is whether the trial court properly allowed the maternal great-grandparents to intervene with the ultimate objective of seeking court-ordered visitation with the minor great-grandchild. The trial court erred.
We note at the outset that the parties have confused the sole issue we are empowered to consider by raising the question of whether a court can award visitation to a non-parent. Cases from this and other jurisdictions--generally under somewhat extraordinary circumstances--have done so. See, e.g., Wills v. Wills, 399 So.2d 1130 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981). We cannot review that question, however, because the trial court proceedings did not reach the stage where the asserted right of the great-grandparents to visitation was resolved on the merits. Once the order permitting intervention was entered, the appellant, the mother, immediately appealed and the trial court had no opportunity to consider that question. *
Our review of the statutory framework under which grandparental visitation can be ordered convinces us, indeed, that permitting great-grandparental intervention in the dissolution action was erroneous. A significant factor, of course, is the relationship of the intervenors to the child--they are his great-grandparents. None of the pertinent statutes confers a visitation right by any blood relative in the lineage beyond the grandparents.
Under section 61.13, Florida Statutes (1987), grandparents can be awarded visitation rights if it is found to be in the child's best interest. Once the right is granted the grandparents have standing to seek its enforcement. Grandparents are not required to be parties, however, "nor shall grandparents have legal standing as 'contestants' [in the dissolution proceeding] as defined in section 61.1306." § 61.13(2)(b)2 C, Fla.Stat. See Shuler v. Shuler, 371 So.2d 588 (Fla. 1st DCA 1979). Thus the manifest legislative intent is to keep non-parents, claiming the status of litigants, out of any dissolution struggle involving visitation rights.
Further evidence of the legislative purpose to prohibit grandparents from becoming parties in the original dissolution action, as the...
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