Grandparents Have Rights to See Grandchildren Under Certain Circumstances
Video Transcribed: What do you do as a grandparent if your grandchild is part of the deprived case with DHS and you want to visit your grandchild? Hello, my name is Ryan Cannonie, I’m an CPS Defense Lawyer with the CPS Investigation Defense Law office. And something that’s come up a few times and I’ve been doing some research on that I think is important for most grandparents to know.
I talked about grandparent’s rights to visitation. But if there is a deprived case filed, that case, that DHS case in the courts supersedes all other cases. Meaning that any other case filed is put on hold while that case is going on. Any other agreements that have been made prior to that case are put on hold while that case is going on. That means custody, anything basically.
There’s some case law out there on this that basically says if you can qualify under Title 43, I think it’s 109.4 for grandparents visitation. Let’s say you under the statute, you can actually qualify and visit your grandchild and get visitation with them.
Then the proper place for you to do that is in the deprived case. Now, what does that mean? That means as a grandparent, you can come in with your own attorney and ask the court to intervene. Meaning that you are not necessarily a party in the case, but you have an interest in the case. And your interest in this situation is obtaining visitation with your grandchild, so you are able to be allowed into the case.
Now, I know that sometimes you will have judges who will, or someone who will object and judges will have to make a ruling on that. And at that point, it becomes a situation where you need an attorney to argue the facts and the case law.
But the problem for you is as a grandparent when there’s a deprived case going on, there’s really no other way for you to get visitation with your grandchild except by being allowed into that deprived case and to be present, be able to have an attorney present and to be able to request the court for visitation through the deprived case.
Since you have no other way to do it, most courts are going to be forced to let you in and allow you to intervene in the case. If you are a grandparent and you want to have visitation with your grandchild and you want to be able to see them, and they are part of a deprived case, they’ve been removed from the home, then please contact an attorney. Contact us.
If you can call us by our phone number, or if you want, you can reach out to us on Tahlequahattorney.com, and there’s a little web form. You can send us your questions there. We’ll call you. We do low-cost consultations, and perhaps we can help you with your case. Please give an Oklahoma DHS attorney a call and we can help you with your legal matters.