State court sides with parents on visitation

The Troxels regularly send birthday cards and letters, but never get replies — or even know if the girls receive the correspondence. The children are 15 and 13 and growing up fast, but after a family dispute and subsequent court action, the Troxels haven't seen them in any school activities. They're not even sure what sports they play, if any.

"Grandparents have a lot to offer kids," Jenifer Troxel said. "They don't have to discipline them, they can just love them to death. When you take that out of the picture, I think you take something away from the kids."

The Troxels represent both the public and private struggles that explode in families when relationships sour. In 2000, the couple took their case for visitation rights all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court — and lost. The court ruled that Washington's visitation laws were too broad and that parents' rights should normally trump the wishes of grandparents.

That reasoning was echoed again last week when the state Supreme Court tossed out a similar statute that was not addressed by the federal ruling. Lawyers from both sides of the case agree that the latest decision likely isolates Washington as the only state not to offer any legal recourse for grandparents denied access to their grandchildren.

The state Legislature has tried for several years to come up with a law that passes constitutional muster, without success. The problem, said Rep. Ruth Kagi, has been a sharp division between the state House — which favors some grandparent visitation rights — and the state Senate, which favors the rights of parents to decide.

"It's going to take a lot of finesse to find a bill that will pass this body," said Kagi, D-Lake Forest Park, who chairs the House Children & Family Services Committee. "But we must find a solution."

The Troxel case has layers of tragedy. It was after the couple's son, Brad Troxel, committed suicide in 1993, that the girls' mother, Tommie Wynn, began cutting back the amount of time the girls spent with their grandparents.

By going to court, the Troxels sparked national debate on the issue but also cemented the divisions in their own family.

"The Washington nonparental visitation statute is breathtakingly broad," wrote Justice Sandra Day O'Conner in the U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion.

"So long as a parent adequately cares for his or her children [i.e., is fit], there will normally be no reason for the state to inject itself into the private realm of the family to further question the ability of that parent to make the best decisions concerning the rearing of that parent's children."

The U.S. Supreme Court limited its decision narrowly to the Troxel case.

It was a similar state law — one specifically dealing with grandparents' rights — that Christian Appel, of Snohomish County, appealed to the state Supreme Court in the most-recent case.

Appel is the father of a 12-year-old girl born on Christmas Day 1992. In 1995, after Appel had split from the girl's mother, he and his daughter moved to Germany to live with his parents, who cared for their granddaughter while he was at work. The girl's grandfather has since died.

In 1997, Appel left his daughter with his parents and returned to the U.S. Three years later, after he got married and his daughter began living with him again, Appel filed a "parentage action" in Snohomish County Superior Court to work out visitation with the girl's birth mother. Appel's mother, Herlinde Appel, also petitioned for visitation rights, but was opposed by her son. The state Court of Appeals ruled in her favor.

The state Supreme Court saw it differently, finding the state law unconstitutional because it leaned in favor of grandparents over parents.

Appel last week issued a statement through his lawyer:

"My wife and I are really thankful for the court's decision. This has been a long ordeal for us as a family. Even though the court ruled in our favor, we do not feel we have 'won.' We are saddened by the loss of relationship and the bitterness that is left behind. Nobody wins in these cases, everyone loses in some way.

"We believe that fit parents must make decisions regarding the well-being of their children. Third parties should not. The courts needed to strike down this statute in order to ensure the rights of fit parents."

Another man who has not seen his granddaughter in seven years believes there is a way to balance the rights of both parents and grandparents.

Rich Raitano of Vancouver, Wash., is local chairman of the lobby group Grandparents Rights Organization of Washington, which is hoping to help draft a grandparents'-rights bill for consideration by the state Legislature next year.

"We don't want to overpower a parent's rights," he said.

Raitano believes in some cases independent mediators should step in when family relationships fall apart. The mediator could at least advise a judge on whether a child might be harmed by continued absence from grandparents, Raitano said.

Rep. Kagi said she will work hard to find a solution that is constitutional.

But the Troxels are not waiting around for new laws. Instead, they are spending as much time as they can with their eight other grandchildren, which Jenifer Troxel said "helps fill the void."

They also are counting down the months and days until their granddaughters become adults — and can decide for themselves whom to visit.

"We are hoping that when they turn 18 they have not forgotten us and try to find us," Jenifer Troxel said.

"That is my wish, my hope, my prayer."

Nick Perry: 206-515-5639