GLASTONBURY, CONNECTICUT · FAMILY LAW + FAMILY-VIOLENCE DEFENSE
This page will disappoint many of the people who find it, and that is better than the alternative.
Connecticut’s standard for granting visitation to a grandparent or other third party over a parent’s objection is demanding, and most situations that feel compelling do not meet it.
C.G.S. §46b-59 permits a third party to seek visitation, but the statute cannot be read alone. In Roth v. Weston, the Connecticut Supreme Court held that constitutional limits require the person seeking visitation to plead and prove two things:
A showing that visits would be good for the child is not enough. Neither is a showing that the parent’s decision is unwise, unfair, or motivated by a family grievance.
Parents have a constitutional right to direct their children’s upbringing, including deciding who the children spend time with. A court overriding that decision is doing something serious, and Connecticut has set the threshold accordingly.
The cases that succeed generally involve a grandparent or other relative who functioned as a parent — the child lived with them, they provided daily care over a sustained period, the relationship was parental in substance rather than in affection.
The cases that fail generally involve a loving grandparent cut off after a family dispute, a death, or a divorce. However painful that is, it is not what the standard addresses.
A third party seeking custody rather than visitation faces a related but distinct standard under Fish v. Fish, requiring proof of a parent-like relationship and that leaving the child in the parent’s custody would be clearly damaging, injurious, or harmful.
The law is substantially on your side. The threshold questions — whether the petition even pleads a parent-like relationship and real and significant harm — are often where these cases end.
Litigation has costs beyond money. A petition against your own child, over your grandchild, will not improve the relationship that produced the dispute, and the legal standard means most petitions do not succeed.
There are circumstances where filing is right, particularly where you have effectively raised the child. A consultation that tells you candidly which side of the line you are on is worth more than one that takes a retainer.
Unmarried parents get custody orders on the same standard as married ones — but parentage may need to be established first.
Read more
Connecticut’s Parentage Act replaced the old paternity framework in 2022. How parentage is established, and the deadline to undo an acknowledgment.
Read more
Connecticut custody attorney Daniel M. Morton on legal and physical custody, parenting plans, relocation, and how judges decide. Glastonbury office.
Read more
Every case starts with a conversation about what you’re facing and what it would take to handle it.
