Nevada lawmakers review visitation rights

Siobhan McDonough

Saturday, Feb. 24, 2001 | 10:07 a.m.

CARSON CITY - Nevada legislators were urged Friday to expand a state law granting child visitation rights to people other than a child's parents.

"The intention is to make it a bill that benefits all the children in Nevada," Myra Sheehan, president of Nevada Trial Lawyers Association, told an Assembly Judiciary subcommittee.

The panel met to discuss AB34, which would revise a 1999 "grandparent's rights" bill that applies only to children of broken marriages or children born out of wedlock.

Assemblywoman Merle Berman, R-Las Vegas, and Sen. Ann O'Connell, R-Las Vegas, are sponsoring similar bills that would extend to children in "intact" homes.

"You can't imagine how many grandparents are taking care of grandchildren. They've poured their whole life into raising the child. Then, the parent reappears and doesn't want the child to have anything to do with this other person whom they've bonded with," said Berman.

"We need to change the language in my bill. We're doing this so it can't be taken to the Supreme Court and invalidated."

Under Nevada law, parents have a fundamental right to care for their children. For the state to intervene, the legislation would have to say a child was harmed by being denied a relationship with grandparents or other non-parents with close ties to a child.

"Our statute didn't take into consideration the parents' constitutional right to decide with whom the child associates, it didn't require the person who wanted the right to visit the child to show how they had been restricted from visiting the child, and it didn't require them to show how harm would be done if the child was restricted from visiting with the person," said Ann Price McCarthy, an attorney from Carson City.

"The way it is now, the grandparents are going to lose if the statute stays this way," she said.

Judiciary Chairman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, said the subcommittee will further review proposed amendments to AB34.

"The paramount interest is protecting the child. This also reaffirms the rights of parents, strengthens the Nevada law and clarifies," said Anderson.