Unmarried father gets visitation rights after years-long battle

Missouri is far from the only state in which it’s difficult for an unmarried father to gain visitation rights or child custody when the mother objects.

One man recently featured in news articles has seen his daughter only one time in the past four and a half years, but he has waged a nonstop battle in courts spanning two states to get the right to visit his girl.

It’s the kind of situation that can happen when the mother and father don’t marry. In this man’s case, his daughter’s mother lived in Colorado before moving to Utah, where she allowed her brother to adopt her child.

That forced the father to take his plea for visitation rights in his custody battle all the way to the Utah Supreme Court. Early this year, that court rejected the Utah adoption and sent the custody fight back to Colorado.

“The ruling was a major victory, in that had the high court there upheld the ruling, the case would have made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court where the covers would have been pulled off the adoption scams being run against unwed fathers in Utah,” the dad said.

Last week, a Colorado court ruled that both birth parents have visitation rights and ordered that the visits must begin with the next 30 days.

The judge in the case said he wants to protect the rights of the birth mother and father, as well as the rights of the adoptive parents.

The case returns to the Colorado court later this month, with the father battling to gain custody of his daughter.

Source: KDVR, “Unmarried father wins visitation rights in custody battle,” Jon Bowman, April 27, 2012