GRANDMOTHER ENTITLED TO HEARING ON HER PETITION FOR CUSTODY, HEARING SHOULD BE HELD IN DISPOSITIONAL PORTION OF PROCEEDINGS TO TERMINATE MOTHER’S PARENTAL RIGHTS.
The Second Department, in a case related to the two cases summarized immediately above, determined grandmother’s petition for custody should not have been dismissed without a hearing. Mother’s parental rights were terminated based upon mental illness and permanent neglect. The Second Department held that grandmother’s petition for custody should be part of the dispositional hearing in the mother’s parental rights proceedings:
A grandparent has standing to seek custody of a child pursuant to Family Court Act article 6 when the child is in foster care, and is generally entitled to a hearing … . While the grandmother was not entitled to an immediate hearing on her custody petition prior to the determination made at the conclusion of the fact-finding hearing in the termination proceedings against the mother … , the proper procedural course would have been for the Family Court to consider her custody petition in the context of a dispositional hearing in the underlying termination proceedings, wherein the court would determine the best interests of the child … . The grandmother did not testify at the fact-finding hearing or any of the permanency hearings held in relation to the termination proceedings against the mother, and was therefore never afforded the right to be heard on the issues … . Accordingly, the Family Court erred in failing to resolve the custody petition before freeing the child for adoption … . Matter of Weiss v Weiss, 2016 NY Slip Op 05717, 2nd Dept 8-3-16
FAMILY LAW (GRANDMOTHER ENTITLED TO HEARING ON HER PETITION FOR CUSTODY, HEARING SHOULD BE HELD IN DISPOSITIONAL PORTION OF PROCEEDINGS TO TERMINATE MOTHER’S PARENTAL RIGHTS)/CUSTODY (GRANDMOTHER ENTITLED TO HEARING ON HER PETITION FOR CUSTODY, HEARING SHOULD BE HELD IN DISPOSITIONAL PORTION OF PROCEEDINGS TO TERMINATE MOTHER’S PARENTAL RIGHTS)/GRANDPARENTS (FAMILY LAW, GRANDMOTHER ENTITLED TO HEARING ON HER PETITION FOR CUSTODY, HEARING SHOULD BE HELD IN DISPOSITIONAL PORTION OF PROCEEDINGS TO TERMINATE MOTHER’S PARENTAL RIGHTS)