Summary
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court considers a direct appeal challenging the constitutionality of 23 Pa.C.S. § 5325(2), which grants grandparents standing to seek partial or supervised physical custody when a child’s parents have been separated for at least six months. The court analyzes the provision under strict scrutiny, focusing on parents’ fundamental rights to direct the care, custody, and control of their children and the state’s parens patriae interest in children’s welfare. The excerpt explains why prior decisions involving a deceased parent or divorced parents do not necessarily resolve the constitutionality of standing based solely on parental separation.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether 23 Pa.C.S. § 5325(2), insofar as it confers grandparent standing based solely on the parents' separation for at least six months, violates parents' fundamental rights under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause.
- Whether the same statutory classification violates the Equal Protection Clause.
- Whether the unconstitutional six-month-separation language should be severed while leaving the remainder of § 5325 in effect.
Holdings
- The portion of 23 Pa.C.S. § 5325(2) conferring grandparent standing where parents have been separated for at least six months violates the Due Process Clause because it is not narrowly tailored to a compelling governmental interest.
- The court did not reach the Equal Protection claim because it held the six-month-separation provision unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause.
- The phrase granting standing where parents 'have been separated for a period of at least six months, or' must be severed from § 5325(2), while the remainder of § 5325 remains in force.
Key quotations
“the fact of a parental separation for six months or more does not render the state’s parens patriae interest sufficiently pressing to justify potentially disturbing the decision of presumptively fit parents concerning the individuals with whom their minor children should associate.” (215)
“Consequently, Section 5325 cannot survive strict scrutiny and, as such, it violates the fundamental rights of parents safeguarded by the Due Process Clause.” (216)
“Accordingly, we now sever the first half of paragraph (2) from the remainder of paragraph (2) and the remainder of Section 5325 generally.” (217)
Factual background
The parents married in 2006 and had three minor children. They separated in October 2012 but did not commence divorce proceedings, obtain a custody order, or seek court involvement because they agreed on custody matters. In December 2012, they jointly decided to discontinue all contact between the children and the paternal grandparents. The grandparents filed for partial physical custody in October 2014, relying on the statutory provision allowing standing when parents had been separated for at least six months, without alleging parental unfitness or danger to the children.
Procedural history
The grandparents filed a custody complaint in the county court seeking partial physical custody. The parents moved to dismiss, asserting that the six-month-separation provision violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights. The Court of Common Pleas granted the motion and dismissed the complaint. The grandparents initially appealed to the Superior Court, which transferred the appeal to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania because the appeal involved a common pleas court decision holding a statute unconstitutional.