Post by Jim on Jun 4, 2009 22:08:43 GMT -5
By Elizabeth Dinan
edinan@seacoastonline.com
June 04, 2009 7:48 PM
PORTSMOUTH -- Kathi Dufton had to go to the Supreme Court for the right to see two of her granddaughters.
"I want to hug them so badly," Dufton said Thursday, one day after the state's highest court ruled that keeping her apart from the girls who call her "grammy" would be "cruel and inhumane."
"The Court should be lauded for ruling so quickly and decisively," said attorney Justin Nadeau, who successfully argued the case before the Supreme Court a month ago.
According to the court's decision, Dufton, now a Newington mother of six and grandmother of eight, was 17 years old when she gave birth to a daughter and relinquished her parental rights by placing that daughter up for adoption.
When that daughter, Vicki Shepard, was 26, she reunited with her mother and for the next 13 years they "were very close," the court found. They vacationed together, visited every other weekend and Dufton attended the birth of her daughter's two daughters.
"It was like a hole in my heart had been filled," Dufton recalled.
Shepard was later diagnosed with cancer and when she died in March of 2005, Dufton was at her side, the court noted in its decision.
Two years later, the grandchildren's father began denying Dufton visitation with the girls and she brought him to Superior Court. According to court records, the girls' father argued Dufton had no right to see them because she was not their natural grandmother. She gave up those rights when she placed Shepard for adoption, he argued.
The Superior Court initially sided with Dufton, but the ruling was reversed in favor of the father by the same judge. Nadeau immediately offered to take the case on appeal to the Supreme Court, said Dufton.
"He knew the situation, spent endless time on it and my only expense was for legal research," she said. "He's a remarkable young man and I love him to pieces."
On June 3 the Supreme Court reversed the lower court's ruling, finding Dufton is indeed the girls' "natural grandmother" and entitled to visitation.
"In a situation such as the present one, where the child's natural parent has died suddenly, the love and commitment of grandparents can be a source of security which lessons the trauma occasioned by the parent's death," the court wrote.
The case now goes back to the superior court, which is expected to revise its order and mandate visits between grandmother and grandchildren.
"It's going to be amazing," said Dufton, who has seen the girls only once in the past year.
"This is a huge victory for grandchildren who deserve every bit of love and nurturing they can receive from giving and caring grandparents, such as Kathleen Dufton," said Nadeau. "It was an honor to represent her."
www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20090604-NEWS-90604036
