New Hampshire: Supreme Court Holds that Burden of Proof of Childs Safety and Best Care Lies with Guardian. By: Taylor W.

Link For Opinion: http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=155223627148019717&q=child+custody+cases+%22new+hampshire%22&hl=en&as_sdt=4,30&as_ylo=2011&as_yhi=2012

                                                                                                                                

The New Hampshire Supreme Court held that in  In re Guardianship of Reena D. 2010-187, 12/28/11 , the burden to prove where the best care of the child is, lies with the guardian.

           

The child, Reena, was given to her paternal grandparent for care while her parents went to India to visit her mother’s family and start a tile company. The paternal grandparents, at the request of the parents, filed for guardianship and were granted it in March of 2002. In March of 2003, the grandfather dies making Reena’s grandmother her sole legal guardian.

In 2003, the parents, or Petitioner, and Reena's actual parents, filed a motion to terminate the guardianship saying the purpose had been filled. The court denied the motion because of the respondents, or grandmothers, motion to dismiss upon Reena’s parents not submitting alcohol tests. At this point, the Petitioner and his wife did not make an attempt to renew the motion until 2007.

The trial court ruled that the petitioner and his wife had the burden to show by a preponderance of the evidence "that substitution or supplementation of parental care and supervision [was] no longer necessary to provide for [their daughter's] essential physical and safety needs" and that terminating the guardianship would not "adversely affect [their daughter's] psychological well-being."

 The petitioner first argues that the trial court erred when it failed to terminate the guardianship because he and his wife did not knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily consent to it in 2002. However, he makes no mention of the 2003 decision to have Reena stay with her grandmother.

The case then went to the New Hampshire Supreme Court and the Petitioner claimed that the trial court violated his state and federal constitution rights when they said the burden of proof was with them to bear in terminating the guardianship. The Supreme Court found that the burden does in fact lie with the guardian of the child and the case was vacated and remanded.