Court Stiffens Stance on Child Custody Changes

In a decision that could make it more difficult for parents to regain custody of children being raised by grandparents, a state appeals court has ruled that natural parents must justify disrupting the children’s lives by ending such arrangements.

The ruling, made public Thursday by the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana, is the first to devise an “applicable test” to determine custody in cases involving grandparent guardianships in California.

“Children are not dogwood trees, to be uprooted, replanted, then replanted again for expediency’s sake,” Presiding Justice David G. Sills wrote in the decision. “The idea that children may be temporarily deposited in the hands of some bailee to be recovered at will--like an old lamp that one doesn’t know what to do with, so one puts it in storage--is contradicted by the cases and common experience.”

In recent years, the overburdened family law system increasingly has relied on guardians, especially grandparents, rather than foster care, to bring up children in cases in which the natural parents are unfit to do so.

The ruling “guarantees a sense of stability for the kids,” said Alan Watahara, president of the California Children’s Lobby in Sacramento.

The number of custody cases involving grandparents has risen dramatically over the years. Among them was the court battle involving O.J. Simpson, who won custody of his children from their maternal grandparents in 1997 after being acquitted of murdering their mother, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

While such cases have provided some guidance, the rulings have not been consistent, Sills wrote.

The appeals court case involved Don H., a Tustin house painter whose last name was not made public in court documents because he is an Alcoholics Anonymous member.

The man’s alcohol addiction and his wife’s “severe mental problems” left them unable to care for their two young daughters, according to court documents. Ongoing family conflict resulted in a 1992 court appointment of the children’s maternal grandmother as guardian of the girls. To protect the family’s privacy, the full names of the children and their grandmother were not revealed.

“It is undisputed that [the grandmother] has done an outstanding job with the children . . . and the children have an emotional, psychological bonding and nurturing relationship with her,” the ruling stated.

But after Don H. had been sober for more than three years, he petitioned the court for custody of the two children. Superior Court Judge Thomas Schulte ruled that, based on the father’s sobriety, he could have custody of the children.

Schulte stayed his own ruling, however, pending an appeal by the grandmother. The state appellate panel on Tuesday overturned the decision.

“A child experiences the whole of a human being as parent, not just some disembodied part,” Sills wrote.