Lea Ann Linder, Carolyn Greene, and Cleta Johnson v. Bill Linder and Mildred Sims

Summary

The Supreme Court of Arkansas reviews a grandparent-visitation dispute involving the Arkansas Grandparental Visitation Act. The court addresses whether the Act is constitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment and Troxel v. Granville, as well as motions based on law of the case and res judicata. The court reverses and dismisses on the constitutional issue.

Holdings

1. Neither law of the case nor res judicata barred review because the prior appeal consisted only of an unpursued notice of appeal, no appellate decision had been issued, and the constitutional issue had not previously been litigated.
2. The Arkansas Grandparental Visitation Act was not facially unconstitutional because it could constitutionally apply where a child was in the custody or guardianship of a nonparent who possessed no Fourteenth Amendment parental right.
3. Strict scrutiny applies when the State interferes with a fit parent's fundamental right to raise and direct the upbringing of a child through a grandparent-visitation order.
4. The Grandparental Visitation Act was unconstitutional as applied because it permitted grandparent visitation based solely on the trial court's best-interests determination, without requiring special weight for the fit parent's decision or a compelling justification such as harm to the child or custodial unfitness.
5. The court would not judicially rewrite the Grandparental Visitation Act to cure its constitutional defects; the constitutional repair of the statute was left to the General Assembly.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the unpursued 1998 notice of appeal triggered law-of-the-case or res judicata principles barring review of the constitutionality of the Grandparental Visitation Act.
2. Whether the Arkansas Grandparental Visitation Act was facially unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.
3. Whether the Arkansas Grandparental Visitation Act was unconstitutional as applied to a fit custodial parent whose opposition to grandparent visitation was overridden solely through a best-interests determination.
4. Whether the Supreme Court should judicially narrow or rewrite the Grandparental Visitation Act rather than reverse and dismiss.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded