NO GUARANTEES: GRANDPARENT RIGHTS IN MARYLAND

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[The information provided herein is not designed nor intended to be legal advice]
The issue of grandparents rights comes up frequently in my law practice.
Grandparent visitation rights are not guaranteed nor assured in Maryland.  The "best interest of the child" is the standard legal guide here.
The visitation rights of grandparents are written in Maryland law and can be found in the Maryland Annotated Code, Family Law Article §9-102.  The statute was last amended in 1993, and now reads as follows:
 "An Equity Court may:

1. consider a Petition for reasonable visitation of a grandchild by a grandparent; and
2. if the Court finds it to be in the best interest of the child, grant visitation rights to grandparent." [MD Code Family Law § 9-102]

However, a grandparent is unlikely to be successful petitioning for visitation over the objection of the parents unless the grandparent is able to show that the parent is unfit or exceptional circumstances exist to indicate that the lack of grandparent visitation will have a harmful effect upon the child who is the subject of the petition. [Koshko v. Haining, 398 Md. 404, 921 A.2d 171 (2007)].

Case Rulings

As in all visitation cases, the court will always consider the best interest of the child in deciding whether to grant visitation. Generally, the court will honor the wishes of the custodial parent and presume that any schedule for visitation presented by the parent is in the best interest of the child.
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) addressed the issue of third party visitation in Troxel v. Granville, 120 S.Ct. 2054 (1999).  In a case brought by grandparents who sought an expanded visitation schedule, the court held unconstitutional a Washington state statute that allowed a court to award visitation to any third party at any time based solely on the best interest of the child standard.
Subsequently, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, citing Troxel, held that the trial court violated a mother’s Constitutional rights when it ordered her to comply with an increased visitation order between her child and the paternal grandparents.  [See Brice v. Brice, 133 Md. App. 302 (2000)].
In Brice, the mother did not oppose or deny visitation between the daughter and the grandparents but she did object to the court imposing a schedule. The court did not find that Fam. Law § 9-102 is unconstitutional.  Instead, the court found that application of the statute was improper because no court had found the mother unfit and visitation had not been denied.
 Thus, in Maryland, grandparents can still file a petition for visitation under Maryland Annotated Code, Family Law Article, § 9-102.  However, it appears that the petition will only be considered if the parent has been found unfit, exceptional circumstances existed or the parent denied grandparent visitation all together.
In 2007, the Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed that parents have a fundamental right to control the upbringing of their children and that grandparents may only be awarded visitation only if they show that the parents are unfit or exceptional circumstances exist.
"To preserve fundamental parental liberty interests, we now apply a gloss to the Maryland Grandparent Visitation Statute requiring a threshold showing of either parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances indicating that the lack of grandparental visitation has a significant  deleterious effect upon the children who are the subject of the petition."
[Koshko v. Haining, 398 Md. 404, 441 (2007)]
[see, http://www.peoples-law.org/grandparent-visitation-rights; John Fader & Richard Gilbert, Maryland Family Law §6-6 (4th Ed. 2005)]