father is incarcerated in california. wife and 3 kids moved to California with father's nuclear family. after 4 years, wife wants a seperati...

Question

father is incarcerated in california. wife and 3 kids moved to California with father's nuclear family. after 4 years, wife wants a seperation and plans to take the kids out of state leaving grandparents, family, behind. if she leaves before father can file divorce/seperation, does he have any options to get the kids back? or is he screwed.

Answer

Either one of the parents need to file in Court for legal separation/dissolution and then nonparents (grandparents/family) can petition for visitation rights which can then fight the move.

If grandparents want help give me a call.

Answer

Mr. Kubler is wrong. Family other than parents have no custody or visitation rights in California, unless they have a guardianship or similar quasi-parental relationship with the children. To answer your direct question, since the family has lived here for four years, California has jurisdiction over the children, and will retain that jurisdiction for six months after they leave and can order the children returned to CA. Any other state will enforce such an order if obtained any time up to six months. After that, jurisdiction will be in the state they move to. Unfortunately, if he father is going to remain incarcerated for any length of time, even if he files in CA and stops the move or makes her return the children, the mother probably has a very good case to obtain court permission to move. So unless he's getting out soon, all he would really do is delay the inevitable.

Answer

No I'm right. Mr. McCormick just doesn't understand or know what I was talking about. The parents have to have a case THEN nonparents can petition for visitation rights. Grandparents have a specific statute that spells it out and there is nothing about guardianship or quasi-parental relationship. There needs to be a preexisting bond between the grandparent and grandchild for visitation to be in the child's best interest THEN the court has to balances the interest of the child in having visitation with the grandparent against the right of the parents to exercise their parental authority.....most often grandparents get visitation rights when one parent dies or in your case when a parent is stuck in jail.