Michigan Military Divorce

Illinois Enacts Third Party Visitation Law

The State of Illinois recently enacted a law permitting grandparents, great-grandparents, siblings, and even step-siblings to seek visitation under certain circumstances. To review this law, click here.

Grandparents with standing to intervene upon death of mother

In Eljahmi v Elgarmi, Docket No. 270848 (Unpublished, decided November 30, 2006), the Michigan Court of Appeals found error where the trial court set aside an ex parte order granting custody to Elgarmi (the child’s biological father) and permitted the maternal grandparents to intervene and to retain custody of their grandchild who had resided with them since birth.

The mother was the victim of a fatal drive-by shooting. The father was “a person of interest” in the investigation. The grandparents sought a guardianship, but the father, who had only parenting time under the existing custody order obtained the ex parte emergency order a day prior to the hearing on the guardianship matter.

Once the trial court set aside the ex parte order and allowed the intervening grandparents to retain custody, it also suspended the father’s parenting time until such time as he might be cleared in the ensuing investigation of the mother’s death. The father appealed.