Santi v. Santi

NEUMAN, Justice.

This appeal concerns that portion- of Iowa’s grandparent visitation statute that permits court-ordered visits regardless of whether circumstances such as divorce, the death of a parent, or an adoption have otherwise prompted court intervention in the family’s affairs. See Iowa Code § 598.35(7) (1999). Here, married parents in an intact nuclear family oppose, on constitutional grounds, the paternal grandparents’ asserted right to visit their three-year-old granddaughter over the parents’ objection.

The district court was convinced following hearing that the grandparents met the…