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In granting
a motion to dismiss an action for visitation, the Superior Court
found that Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-59, which allows the court grant
to any party visitation with a child, did not allow the court to
order visitation for the paternal grandmother of a six-year-old
child whose father had lost parental rights four years earlier.
The court found that the grandparent could demonstrate (1) that
there had been some intrusion by the State into the privacy of the
child's family and (2) that there had been a disintegration of the
traditional family unit; hence, the facts satisfied both prongs
of the test established by the Supreme Court to determine when jurisdiction
to hear a petition filed pursuant to Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-59 vests.
See Castagno v. Wholean, 239 Conn. 336 (1996). The Superior Court
dismissed the action, however, because of the lapse of time between
the termination of parental rights and the petition for visitation,
the court reasoned that 'the fact is that a new family unit, consisting
of the [child's mother] and the child, has long since emerged and
[has] existed for four years.' The court explained that this new
family unit deserve the same protections set forth in Castagno.
The court explicitly construed the phrase 'traditional family unit,'
as used by the Connecticut Supreme Court in Castagno, to include
a single-parent household in which the other parent has no involvement.
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