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EspañolWhat is custody?
Custody in the Virgin Islands is the right and responsibility to care for and control a child under the age of 18.1 There are two types of custody, physical and legal.
Physical custody is the physical care and supervision of a child and the right to have the child live in the parent’s or caregiver’s home.2 The person with physical custody will make the day-to-day decisions for the child. A person with physical custody of a child is also entitled to receive child support from the other parent.
Legal custody is the right to make the major decisions in the child’s life, such as where the child goes to school, the religion the child practices, the type of medical care the child receives, etc. A person with legal custody also has legal access to any documents for the child, including medical and school records.3
1 16 V.I.C. § 116(2)
2 16 V.I.C. § 116(14)
3 See Knoepfel v. Knoepfel, 2015 WL 1389806 (2015)
What is the difference between sole and joint custody?
Physical and legal custody can either be sole, where one parent has it alone, or joint, where it’s shared between the parents. Any combination of the two is possible. Parents or caregivers can have joint physical custody in which, for example, the child spends half the week at one person’s house and half the week at the other’s, or they can have joint legal custody in which they share decision-making responsibility for the child.
The most common arrangement in the Virgin Islands is for one parent to have sole physical custody and both parents sharing joint legal custody. Generally, the courts favor both parents having maximum contact with the child.
What is visitation?
Visitation is a parent’s or relative’s right to spend time with the child. Visitation can take place through face-to-face contact with the child or over the telephone, depending on the circumstances. When requesting visitation from the court, a parent can ask for a specific schedule for visitation, or may leave the visitation schedule open, and simply state that the visitation will be reasonable or liberal.
A parent’s right to visitation is not affected by non-payment of child support. The custodial parent cannot deny visitation due to non-payment. In extreme cases, the judge could order supervised visitation if it’s necessary to protect the child.1
1 16 V.I.C. § 109(d)(1)
Should I start a court case to ask for supervised visits?
If you are not comfortable with the abuser being alone with your child, you might be thinking about asking the judge to order that visits with your child be supervised. If you are already in court because the abuser filed for visitation or custody, you may not have much to lose by asking that the visits be supervised if you can present a valid reason for your request although this may depend on your situation.
However, if there is no current court case, please get legal advice before you start a court case to ask for supervised visits. We strongly recommend that you talk to an attorney who specializes in custody matters to find out what you would have to prove to get the visits supervised and how long supervised visits would last, based on the facts of your case.
In the majority of cases, supervised visits are only a temporary measure. Although the exact visitation order will vary by state/territory, county, or judge, the judge might order a professional to observe the other parent on a certain amount of visits or the visits might be supervised by a relative for a certain amount of time – and if there are no obvious problems, the visits may likely become unsupervised. Oftentimes, at the end of a case, the other parent ends up with more frequent and/ or longer visits than s/he had before you went into court or even some form of custody.
In some cases, to protect your child from immediate danger by the abuser, starting a case to ask for custody and supervised visits is appropriate. To find out what may be best in your situation, please go to VI Finding a Lawyer to seek out legal advice.
When does a Virgin Islands court have power (jurisdiction) over a child?
Jurisdiction is the authority of a court to decide who should have custody of a particular child. Typically, the Virgin Islands courts will have jurisdiction if the Virgin Islands is the child’s “home state,” meaning that the child has lived in the Virgin Islands with a parent for six months or longer before the case is filed.1 This is true when the child is currently in the Virgin Islands, or if the child is currently away but the Virgin Islands was the child’s home state within the six months before the case was filed and a parent still lives in the Virgin Islands.2 However, there could be exceptions to this six-month rule if, for example, the child has been in the Virgin Islands for less than 6 months and has been abandoned or is the victim or threatened victim of abuse or neglect.3
1 16 V.I.C. § 116(7)
2 16 V.I.C. § 127
3 16 V.I.C. § 130
When can a grandparent file a petition for visitation rights?
In the Virgin Islands, a grandparent can file a petition for visitation in court if any of the following are true:
- the parents of the minor child are currently living separately and they plan to stay that way, or they are not sure how long they will be living separately;
- one of the parents has been absent for more than one month and the other parent doesn’t know where that parent is;
- the child is not living with either parent and has not been legally adopted; or
- the minor child’s parent died, and the petitioning grandparent is the deceased person’s parent. However, if the minor child’s living parent remarries, and the minor child gets legally adopted by a step-parent, the grandparent cannot file for visitation.1
Note: A “grandparent” is defined under the law as:
- the biological or adoptive parent of either parent of the minor child; or
- a biological grandparent of a child adopted by a step-parent or another relative.2
1 16 V.I.C. § 604(a)
2 16 V.I.C. § 603
When can a grandparent be granted visitation rights?
Once a grandparent files a visitation petition, the judge may hold a hearing if the parties cannot reach an agreement. At the hearing, the judge will grant visitation to the grandparent if it is in the child’s best interests. The judge will consider the following factors when deciding whether visitation is in the best interests of the child:
- whether the visitation would interfere with any parent-child relationship or with a parent’s authority over the child;
- the nature of the relationship between the grandparent and the minor child, including:
- how often they had contact;
- whether the child has lived with the grandparent and the length of time of that they lived together;
- the motivation of the grandparent in filing the petition for visitation; and
- the grandparent’s ability to give the child love, affection, and guidance;
- whether the child’s physical or emotional health would be endangered by the visitation or lack of it;
- the nature of the relationship between the grandparent and the parent of the minor child, including friction between the grandparent and the parent, and the effect such friction would have on the child;
- the age of the child;
- the circumstances that resulted in the absence of a nuclear family, whether by divorce, death, relinquishment or termination of parental rights, or other cause;
- the recommendation regarding visitation made by any guardian ad litem appointed for the child or by a child welfare agency;
- any preference or wishes expressed by the child, if the child is old enough and mature enough to express a meaningful preference; and
- any other factors as the judge may find appropriate or relevant to the petition for visitation.1
1 16 V.I.C. § 605
