St. Thomas Law Review
Article Title
Von Eiff v. Azicri: An Important Step in the Refinement of Grandparent Visitation Analysis
Abstract
This article first examines Von Eiff's legal predecessors: earlier Florida cases that defined the constitutional dimension of familial rights and first attempted to reconcile grandparent visitation with those rights. Indeed, the stage was actually set for Von Eiff by two cases that rejected constitutional challenges to the grandparent visitation statute. The first used no supporting authority. The second equated the rights of single parents with those of married parents prior to dismissing both as unsubstantial. By chance the omissions of each of these cases left precisely the logical gap, which it seems was needed to accommodate the decisions supporting parental rights that were to follow. Second, the article explores the Von Eiff opinion itself, beginning with its conceptualization of the right at stake. Although the court ultimately found the statutory provision at issue unconstitutional under the state constitution's guarantee of privacy, nothing in its analysis suggests that the court believed the provision could survive a federal constitutional challenge. The article also examines the court's explication of the harm standard. This is perhaps the most significant aspect of the Von Eiff decision, for by specifically articulating what "harm" means in the context of Florida domestic relations law the court eliminated the conceptual blurring of a best interests of the child analysis and a harm analysis. The confusion of these two concepts has infected a decade, at least, of grandparent visitation decisions in Florida and elsewhere, and, indeed, relegated grandparent visitation law to the intellectually illegitimate fringes of family law itself. This section of the article also examines the logic Von Eiff uses to support its conclusion. In this portion of its opinion the court demonstrates the logic of its position both in the broadest context of domestic relations law and in the context of human experience itself. The court notes, for example, that since an adoption "creates the same 'relationship ... for all purposes' between the adopted child and the adoptive parent ' as would have occurred in a biological family, any attempt to condition government intervention on family status is problematic at best. A final section of the article examines the effect of the Von Eiff decision both on Florida domestic relations law and on the development of grandparent visitation law nationally.