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Minnesota does recognize a grandparent’s right to seek visitation rights. It’s not an unlimited amount of time like a custodial parent might get, but it may give them an opportunity to see a child perhaps a weekend a month or something like that. This is a complicated area and it’s governed by United State Supreme Court authority as well as Minnesota Supreme Court authority, but it does put significant influence in the hands of the custodial parent in making those initial determination. And then if that then is not satisfactory to the grandparents they then can come to the courts in our state and ask for grandparent visitation. And ultimately the issues is, how would the child having contact with the grandparent be in that child’s best interest, on the one hand, versus how will that negative impact the child’s ability to be parented by their parent. So, for instance, in the case of estranged grandparents and child, perhaps the daughter doesn’t want the grandparents to see the child. That does occur in some circumstances. The grandparents can come and ask to have the court order that, but the court may find that the grandparents are interfering with or negatively impacting the child’s relationship with the custodial parent and may deny those rights or may impose other restrictions to ensure that that relationship is beneficial to the child and not detrimental to the custodial parent.
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Minnesota family law attorney, Marc Johannsen, explains how grandparents have limited rights to see grandchildren.