H239 - Grandparents' Visitation Rights

• Removes the requirement that grandparents have a "substantial relationship" with a child to petition for visitation rights, allowing biological grandparents to seek visitation on a case-by-case basis.

• Establishes seven specific factors courts must consider when determining grandparent visitation in the child's best interest, including preexisting relationships, child's willingness, parental reasonableness, and health of both child and grandparent.

• Creates a rebuttable presumption that grandparent visitation is not in the child's best interest if both biological parents agree the grandparent should not have visitation rights.

• Maintains the existing prohibition that biological grandparents of children adopted by unrelated adoptive parents (where both biological parents' rights were terminated) cannot obtain visitation rights.

• Effective upon enactment and applies to visitation actions commenced after the bill becomes law.