Suster v. Arkansas Department of Human Services

Jack Holt, Jr., Chief Justice.

The issue before us is the effect of a court ordered termination of the parental rights of a mother to her child in relation to the rights of the child’s maternal grandmother to visitation and custody of the child. We hold that the grandmother’s rights are derivative of her daughter’s rights, and for this reason the grandmother has no standing to intervene in the adoption proceedings of her granddaughter.

Lori Hughes Cook and Carl Mounts were married from 1980 to 1984 and had one daughter, Crystal Mounts, in 1982. Thereafter, they were divorced, and Lori Hughes…