Neal v. Lee
| Court | Supreme Court of Oklahoma |
| Citation | 2000 OK 90,14 P.3d 547 |
| Docket Number | No. 93,670.,93,670. |
| Parties | Karen Sue NEAL, Plaintiff/Appellee, v. Kristina LEE and Keehan Odell Nesvold, Defendants/Appellants. |
| Decision Date | 07 November 2000 |
14 P.3d 547
2000 OK 90
v.
Kristina LEE and Keehan Odell Nesvold, Defendants/Appellants
No. 93,670.
Supreme Court of Oklahoma.
November 7, 2000.
As Corrected November 28, 2000.
Mark A. Zannotti, Tulsa, OK, for the Appellants.
Lynn Summers Lugibihl, William A. Caldwell, Barber & Bartz, Tulsa, OK, for the Appellee.
¶ 1 Title 10, section 5 of the Oklahoma Statutes permits a court to grant grandparent visitation if the "court deems it in the best interest of the child."1 In November of 1997, Karen Sue Neal petitioned the district court for the right to visit Joshua, Whitney, and Hunter, her grandchildren. Kristina Nesvold, Karen Neal's daughter and the children's mother, and Keehan Nesvold, Joshua's step-father and Whitney and Hunter's father, opposed the visitation. The trial court granted Karen Neal grandparent visitation finding the visitation was in the grandchildren's best interest.
I. FACTS
¶ 2 When Kristina Nesvold became pregnant with Joshua, she was single. Joshua was born in July of 1989. Joshua's biological father died in 1991. He and Kristina Nesvold never married. Kristina Nesvold married Keehan Nesvold. Kristina Nesvold and
¶ 3 On April 27, 1998, the Nesvolds and Karen Neal agreed to an order allowing Karen Neal three supervised visits. The parties also agreed that Ms. Simpson, a child therapist, should formulate a grandparent visitation plan to be filed with the court. The plan was to become final ten days after it was filed unless one of the parties filed an objection. Ms. Simpson's grandparent visitation plan was filed on March 11, 1999. The visitation plan granted one day visitation to Karen Neal on the second Saturday of each month and fours hours on the fourth Tuesday. On March 15, 1999, the Nesvolds filed an objection to the plan and requested a stay of grandparent visitation. On May 25, 1999, the Nesvolds filed a motion to terminate grandparent visitation.
¶ 4 On June 14, 1999, over the Nesvolds' objection, the district court entered an order granting Karen Neal visitation with Joshua, Whitney, and Hunter as recommended in Ms. Simpson's report. The Nesvolds filed a petition in error asserting that the title 10, section 5 unconstitutionally infringes on their relations with their children. This Court retained the appeal for resolution.
II. Court Ordered Grandparent Visitation
¶ 5 Grandparent visitation was recently addressed by the United Supreme Court. Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 L.Ed.2d 49 (2000). In Troxel, the biological parents of two daughters were never married. After the parents' separation, the father lived with his parents, and the daughters visited their paternal grandparents often. After the father committed suicide, the paternal grandparents petitioned the court for visitation with their granddaughters. The mother did not oppose visitation but wanted more limited visitation than the grandparents requested. The lower court granted grandparent visitation. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
¶ 6 The United Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of section 26.10.160(3) of the Revised Code of Washington which allowed "any person" at "any time" to obtain visitation rights whenever the visitation was in the child's best interest. The United Supreme Court invalidated the statute finding that it impermissibly interfered with "the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children." Troxel, 530 U.S. at ___, 120 S.Ct. at 2060.
¶ 7 The decision was based on several factors. First, the grandparents did not allege and the lower court did not find that the mother was unfit. Id. at 2061. The Court elaborated:
[S]o long as a parent adequately cares for his or her children (i.e., is fit), there will normally be no reason for the State to inject itself into the private realm of the family to further question the ability of that parent to make the best decisions concerning the rearing of that parent's children. Id.
Second, the lower court "gave no special weight at all to [the mother's] determination of her daughters' best interests." Id. at 2062. Third, the lower...
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