HACKENSACK DIVORCE LAWYER

The New Jersey family law judge granted unsupervised weekly visitation to the paternal grandparents under the New Jersey grandparent visitation statute. But this decision is now reversed, since their only evidence was that they babysat the toddler on occasion, and the mother was amenable to supervised visitation, possibly once a month. The grandparents' proofs were clearly insufficient to satisfy the high burden of proof of harm required under Moriarty v. Bradt to rebut the presumption in favor of parental decision-making. The judge made no finding (and the record is devoid of evidence to support a finding) that visitation was necessary and the monthly supervised visitation schedule offered by the mother was inadequate to avoid harm to the child.     Rente, et vir. v. Rente, New Jersey App. Div., ___ N.J.___ (App. Div. 2006); February 13, 2007