Grandparents may have legal rights in Rhode Island, regarding visitation, however, this is far from certain.
In the event the grandparents and parents can come to an agreement regarding visitation, court intervention is generally not required. When no such agreement can be made, there are certain situations grandparents may be granted a court order allowing visitations.
Under Rhode Island law, grandparents have the right to ask a court for visitation with their grandchild, but this Statute may be in contravention to Untired States Supreme Court Law.
In other words, the issue as to grandparents rights to visits, may in fact be quite complex.
At a court hearing, the requesting grandparents will need to show visitation has been denied by the natural parents and that the proposed visitation is in the child’s best interest, a relationship has been established, and that it will be very harmful to the child’s health, safety, or welfare in the absence of the grandparents.
Even if the grandparent did not have an important or well-established relationship with the child before the case began, the court could still grant visitation rights to protect the child from “significant harm.”
To have questions about your specific situation answered, give our office a call.
