Grandparents' Rights

• When joint legal custody is awarded to both parents, one parent generally has physical custody of the child while the other has visitation rights. The parents of both of the divorced spouses should still have access to their grandchildren during the divorce process and after the divorce is final. Laws regarding grandparents' rights differ according to state. The New York State legislature created a grandparents' visitation rights statute in 1966, allowing such visitation if one of the child's parents died. The statute was updated in 1975 to allow grandparents to sue for visitation even if neither parent had died. A grandparent may apply to family court, or the state supreme court, and the court will rule according to the best interests of the child.