noting that '‘[t]he United States Supreme court has recognized that parents have fundamental, basic and constitutionally protected rights to raise their own children and that any attack by third persons (and we would include grandparents in that category) seeking to abrogate that right must show unfitness by ‘clear and convincing evidence.’ ”
How later courts described this case
- noting that '‘[t]he United States Supreme court has recognized that parents have fundamental, basic and constitutionally protected rights to raise their own children and that any attack by third persons (and we would include grandparents in that category) seeking to abrogate that right must show unfitness by ‘clear and convincing evidence.’ ”
- requiring unfitness or abandonment and noting that failure to provide essential care only qualifies when based on reasons other than poverty alone
- requiring unfitness,or abandonment ánd noting that failure to provide essential care only qualifies when based on reasons other than poverty alone
- parental unfitness as shown by abuse, moral delinquency, abandonment, emotional or mental illness, or failure, for reasons other than poverty alone, to provide essential care of child
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
VANCE, Justice
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because the trial judge in his findings of fact and conclusions of law determined that the respondent, the natural mother, was not a fit or proper person to have the custody of her minor children. He recited the facts upon which he based his determination.
The Court of Appeals reversed his decision because, in its view, the trial judge was required to find such a degree of unfitness as would justify a termination of the mother’s parental rights before he could grant custody to the grandmother. There is dicta to that effect in Boatwright v. Walker, Ky.App., 715 S.W.2d 237, 244 (1986). The majority opinion does not discuss the propriety of the Boatwright standard for determination of unfitness, but seemingly establishes a lesser standard, *331 and holds that the evidence of unfitness of the natural mother was insufficient to deprive her of custody.
In my opinion, the findings of the trial judge were not clearly erroneous, nor did his judgment constitute an abuse of discretion. For that reason I would reinstate the judgment of the trial court.
WINTERSHEIMER, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.