In a 20-page opinion the Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed an Order made by Hennepin County Referee Kevin McGrath that previously had granted an “unprecedented” amount of parenting time of a grandchild to the grandmother. In 2009 Brittany Givens-Copeland, 24, was strangled by a former boyfriend. Her son was only 4 months old at the time. Givens-Copeland came from one of Minnesota’s most philanthropic black families. Givens-Copeland’s mother is a prominent businesswoman and entrepreneur in the Minneapolis area. The boy’s father, Anthony Darst, was active in his son’s life, and saw him regularly before his mother’s death.
Givens-Copeland petitioned for and was granted custody of the child without Darst’s knowledge. Darst sought custody and was awarded sole legal and physical custody of the child. McGrath granted Givens-Copeland visitation twice per week and every other weekend. In Minnesota, a district court has broad discretion to determine what is in the best interests of a child regarding visitation. The authority of the Court to consider grandparents when making visitation decisions is laid out in Minnesota Statute § 518.1752 which incorporates by reference the statutory provisions of Minnesota Statutes Sec. 257C.08.
257C.08 specifically allows the district court to consider a request (by petition) for grandparent’s rights to visitation if the grandparents are the parents of a deceased parent of the child. It states specifically that:
If a parent of an unmarried minor child is deceased, the parents and grandparents of the deceased parent may be granted reasonable visitation rights to the unmarried minor child during minority by the district court upon finding that visitation rights would be in the best interests of the child and would not interfere with the parent child relationship. The court shall consider the amount of personal contact between the parents or grandparents of the deceased parent and the child prior to the application.
The Court of Appeals found that the schedule awarded to Givens-Copeland interfered with Darst’s relationship with his son. The Court went on to say that while such a schedule may be appropriate for unmarried parents, grandparents still have more limited rights. Givens-Copeland was still awarded time with the child, just on a more limited basis.
