5.11 Cases Granting Visitation

In Broussard-Scher v. Legendre, the grandmother was granted visitation where the parents and child lived in the grandmother’s house after leaving the birth hospital, the parents returned to their apartment a week later and the child stayed with grandmother, grandmother was the primary caregiver for the child, and the court-appointed expert testified that extraordinary circumstances existed and that it was in the best interest of the child to award the grandmother visitation.1

In Ray v. Ray, the court granted visitation rights to the paternal aunt because the father was dead, the paternal grandfather was absent, the child had lived with the paternal aunt, and other factors all of which presented “extraordinary circumstances.” This case was decided under Article 136 rather than La. R.S. 9:344 due to the lack of the requisite familial relationship between the child and the plaintiff, but the definition of extraordinary circumstances is a good one for actions under either statute.2

In Wood v. Wood, grandparent visitation of one weekday per month was upheld because the father also was awarded more substantial visitation in Utah. The court determined that as the non-domiciliary parent’s time increases, any potential grandparent visitation may decrease due to the courts’ preference to give parents time with their children.3

In Babin v. Babin, visitation was granted to the maternal grandmother, allowing her to spend 4 hours every 3 weeks with her deceased daughter’s minor children.4  An issue on appeal was whether the trial court erred as a matter of constitutional law by refusing to require a threshold showing of “serious circumstances” to justify the court’s intervention in the parent/child relationship. The appellate court ruled that the grandmother did not have to show extraordinary circumstances to get visitation. Rather, the special factors listed in the statute supplied the legal basis for visitation. The court held that the length and quality of the relationship enjoyed with her grandchildren prior to her daughter’s death, the fact that the visitation awarded was not significantly intrusive upon the children’s relationship with their father, and the restriction that the grandmother was not to diminish the father’s authority over the children or to undermine his ability to raise the children as he saw fit, all served to support the conclusion that visitation was in the grandchildren’s “best interest.”5

In Vincent v. Vincent, the court found that the maternal grandmother had a cause of action for visitation when the mother was incarcerated.6

• 110-1164 (La. App. 3 Cir. 3/23/11), 60 So. 3d 1290.
• 294-1478 (La. App. 3 Cir. 5/3/95), 657 So. 2d 171.
• 3Wood v. Wood, 2002-0860 (La. App. 9/27/02), 835 So. 2d 568; see also Beebe v. Delcambre, 2016-17 (La. App. 3 Cir. 6/1/16), 194 So. 3d 1214.
• 42002-0396 (La. App. 1 Cir. 7/30/03), 854 So. 2d 403.
• 5See also Garner v. Thomas, 2008-1448 (La. App. 4 Cir. 5/28/09), 13 So. 3d 784.
• 698-1346 (La. App. 1 Cir. 6/25/99), 739 So. 2d 920.