Grandma and grandpa no longer

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Up next: What is a grandparent?

That’s the question behind a recent Colorado Supreme Court decision. The ruling sets a new legal precedent for who can be considered a grandparent in that state.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: At the heart of this case, one couple, two sets of grandparents and three young children.

 In April of 2020, 33-year-old Brandon Sullivan killed his wife, Amanda, and then turned the gun on himself. The couple’s infant twins were found physically unharmed near their parent’s bodies. Authorities picked up their two-year-old sibling, found wandering outdoors near the family’s home in Delta County, Colo.

After the murder-suicide, Amanda’s parents took custody of the children and later adopted them. Lower courts granted Brandon’s parents grandparent visitation rights. But in 2022 Amanda’s parents asked the courts to reverse that decision. The family's lawyer would not divulge why.

Last month the case reached the Colorado Supreme Court. In the end, the justices redefined the state’s official definition of what a grandparent is. Colorado lawyer Nicole Hunt has been following the case.

HUNT: Colorado statutes define a grandparent in a very narrow way. It applies only to people who are the grandparents of the current parent.

That very specific definition means the paternal grandparents were denied visitation rights…as the maternal grandparents are the legal adoptive parents.

HUNT: They technically, legally no longer had standing because they weren’t related in any way to the current parents, who were the mom’s parents.

Hunt, also a spokesperson for Colorado-based Focus on the Family, says the ruling is messy and troubling.

HUNT: I think for a lot of folks who are pro-family minded, gosh a mom and a dad both died and so these kids are left in this super traumatic situation and now they don’t have access to both sets of grandparents. That doesn’t feel like it sits right.

Historically, the outcome mirrors the U.S. Supreme Court ruling 25 years ago in the case Troxel vs. Granville. The justices ruled parents have a fundamental right to control the upbringing of their children.

HUNT: I can see the parents' right side being very important to control what’s in the best interest of your child. And I can also see why it would be very important to continue in the midst of crisis and trauma for kids to have stability with family members that they’ve developed significant familial bonds with.

There once was a time when things like this were much simpler. Richard Victor remembers those days.

VICTOR: Back in the day we didn’t need laws for grandparents to see grandchildren. You just made a phone call.

Victor is a retired family law attorney.

VICTOR: Back in the '50ss and '60s many families all lived in the same home or same duplex and they were together. Only with the advent of significant divorces in the '70s, children born out of wedlock and the changing American family did we see a change in the structure of families.

Over time those ever-changing family dynamics made grandparenting difficult.

VICTOR: Grandparents were not being allowed to see grandchildren not because the laws said they couldn’t, but because there were no laws that existed.

In 1978, Victor started a national grandparents rights organization that helped lawmakers from around the country craft new legislation.

VICTOR: And so how should we protect the family under law? And I said from the child’s perspective up. And that’s when we started working on the laws. We found that there was a lot of political maneuvering in some states that favored grandparents. Some states favored biological mothers, not even fathers. And so we had a divergence of laws created within all 50 states.

And those laws still exist today. Nicole Hunt says that’s why the Colorado Supreme Court enforced its narrow legal interpretation of what a grandparents is. But laws can be changed.

HUNT: If Colorado wanted to change that to make it more encompassing, they could actually just expand the definition of grandparents in the statutory code.

Colorado isn’t the only state with a narrow definition.

HUNT: Georgia is one that does not allow for visitation even if a relative adopts. Florida, Minnesota, Nebraska, Indiana, South Dakota.

But Hunt says there are many states, like California, that have moved to a much broader definition of grandparent to avoid some of the confusion.

HUNT: New York, Illinois, North Carolina, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Utah…

And, Alabama.

AUDIO: You want to tell Grandaddy bye bye. Say bye bye grandaddy

That’s where Peggy Connell lives. Her six grandchildren call her “honey”.

AUDIO: Jump in…

Connell’s three-year-old grandson Cage lives in her neighborhood. Connell says while she’s grateful he’s just a wagon-ride away, she’s always encouraging him to think about his other set of grandparents, who live in another state.

CONNELL: I say oh, Cage, you’re going to see Mimi and Papa. That’s what he calls the other ones. And get him excited about that because they do love him and care for him. Don’t you want that for children?

Hunt says yes. That’s exactly what she’d like to see happen in Colorado.

HUNT: I would want to make sure that grandparents, especially faith-based grandparents, who have a Biblical worldview, have the opportunity to build those relationships and to maintain those relationships with their grandchildren.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Myrna Brown in Spanish Fort, Alabama, with assistance from Harrison Watters in Washington D.C.

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