Arkansas Grandparents' Rights: Visitation Law After Linder v. Linder

A fit parent's decision about grandparent visitation carries real constitutional weight in Arkansas, and grandparents do not have an automatic right to see a grandchild. Arkansas's legislature added the parental presumption the Arkansas Supreme Court found missing in 2002 by Act 652 of 2003, then broadened who may file by Act 679 of 2019, and Arkansas appellate courts apply that current version of the statute regularly.

Information last verified on 2026-08-12. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

What Arkansas's Grandparent Visitation Law Says

Ark. Code Ann. Section 9-13-103 sets a rebuttable presumption that the custodian's, usually a parent's, decision to deny or limit visitation is in the child's best interest. A grandparent must rebut that presumption by a preponderance of the evidence, a lower bar than the clear-and-convincing standard several neighboring states use, but a real burden nonetheless, generally requiring proof of a significant relationship with the grandchild. A separate provision, Section 9-13-107, allows a grandparent or great-grandparent to petition the court that granted custody or guardianship for visitation whenever the child is already living under a non-parent's custody or guardianship, a somewhat different track than an original petition against an intact family.

Standing to file under Section 9-13-103(b) is limited to six situations. The first three turn on the family's status: the marital relationship between the child's parents has already been severed by death, divorce, or legal separation; the child was born outside marriage and the petitioner is a maternal grandparent or great-grandparent; or the child was born outside marriage, the petitioner is a paternal grandparent or great-grandparent, and paternity has been established by a court of competent jurisdiction. Two details matter here. The marital relationship must already have been severed, not merely be in the process of ending, and a paternal grandparent of a child born outside marriage has no standing at all until paternity is formally established.

The other three grounds were added by Act 679 of 2019 and do not depend on the parents' marital status: the court finds by clear and convincing evidence that the primary custodian of the child is unfit; the court finds by clear and convincing evidence that there are compelling circumstances to overcome the presumption that the parental decision is in the child's best interest, weighed against a list of best-interest factors the statute supplies; or a stepparent of either biological parent adopts the child due to that biological parent's death. The compelling-circumstances ground is the one route open to a grandparent whose adult child is married and simply limiting contact, but it is a demanding one, because the court must make that finding by clear and convincing evidence before the case reaches the preponderance-of-the-evidence showing in subsection (c).

Linder v. Linder and the Legislative Response

In Linder v. Linder, 348 Ark. 322, 72 S.W.3d 841 (2002), the Arkansas Supreme Court applied strict scrutiny to the Arkansas Grandparental Visitation Act and declined to strike it down on its face, reasoning that the statute could still be applied constitutionally in a narrow category of cases, for example where the child is already in a non-parent's custody and no parent's constitutional interest is directly at stake. But the Court held the Act unconstitutional as applied to the mother in that case, because the version of the statute then in force made no provision for giving a fit parent's decision presumptive or special weight, and the trial court had found her «unfit» only as to the single decision of denying visitation, which the Court held did not satisfy the compelling-interest requirement for an otherwise fit, custodial parent.

That was an as-applied ruling about a 2002-era statute, not a permanent, facial invalidation of Arkansas's grandparent visitation law. The legislature responded directly and quickly. Act 652 of 2003, approved March 25, 2003, carried the title «An Act to Amend the Arkansas Code to Conform the Grandparents' Visitation Statute with Recent Arkansas Supreme Court and United States Supreme Court Decisions», and it added the provisions that answer Linder: the rebuttable presumption in subsection (c)(1) that a custodian's decision denying or limiting visitation is in the child's best interest, the preponderance-of-the-evidence burden to rebut it, and the «significant and viable relationship» test in subsections (c)(2) and (d). The same Act created Section 9-13-107. All of that is confirmed against the official enrolled Act text published by the Arkansas General Assembly.

Act 679 of 2019, known as «Tara's Law» and approved April 3, 2019, did something different, and it is often misreported. It did not create the presumption, which had been in force for sixteen years by then. The Act's own text shows subsection (c) already on the books and edits it only from «must prove» to «shall prove». What Act 679 actually added was an uncodified legislative-intent statement that a fit parent's decision about grandparent visitation «is entitled to special weight due to a parent's fundamental right to make decisions concerning the rearing of his or her child», three new grounds for filing in subsections (b)(4), (b)(5) and (b)(6), an expanded best-interest showing in subsection (e) covering emotional distress, emotional abuse and emotional neglect, and a new subsection (i) excluding dependency-neglect proceedings.

The current statute is not untested. Arkansas appellate courts apply the post-2019 version routinely. Burris v. Simmons, 2023 Ark. App. 432, 676 S.W.3d 302, decided a grandparent's petition for visitation under Ark. Code Ann. Section 9-13-103 (Repl. 2020), and later reported decisions including Zaragoza v. McDonald, 2024 Ark. App. 77, and Starkey v. Holmes, 2025 Ark. App. 279, apply its specific subsections. A grandparent with a live case should still ask a family-law attorney how those decisions bear on the particular facts.

This residual question is not unique to Arkansas. The underlying constitutional issue comes from Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000), where the U.S. Supreme Court held that a fit parent's decision about a child's visitors deserves real constitutional deference, without setting one single nationwide test every state must copy. States that had older, best-interest-only statutes, including Arkansas and Alabama, have generally had to either amend their laws or have them narrowed by their own courts. Arkansas took the legislative-amendment path, first in 2003 and again in 2019.

Custody Is a Separate, Harder Track

Arkansas has no statute that lets a grandparent win custody on an easier showing than any other non-parent, but two provisions matter. Ark. Code Ann. Section 9-13-101(a)(2)(A) is grandparent-specific: on petition by a grandparent who meets the requirements of Section 9-13-101(a)(2)(B), a circuit court shall grant the grandparent a right to intervene under Rule 24(a) of the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure, and that grandparent is entitled to notice and an opportunity to be heard in the custody proceeding. Those requirements are demanding. The grandchild must have lived with the grandparent for at least six continuous months before the child's first birthday if the child is twelve months old or younger, or for at least one continuous year if the child is older than twelve months; the grandparent must have been the grandchild's primary caregiver and financial supporter during that time; and the continuous custody must have occurred within one year of the date the custody proceeding was started. Section 9-13-101(a)(1)(B) also expressly contemplates a court awarding custody to a grandparent. Separately, the general probate guardianship-of-the-person statute, Ark. Code Ann. Section 28-65-210, requires the court to be satisfied that a guardianship is desirable to protect the minor's interests, without an elevated, grandparent-specific standard visible in the statute's text. For the fuller picture, see Can Grandparents Get Custody? and Arkansas child custody laws.

What Happens if the Grandchild Is Adopted

Arkansas does not have a blanket rule that adoption automatically ends grandparent visitation. Instead, one of Section 9-13-103's own standing triggers specifically covers the situation where a stepparent adopts the child following a biological parent's death, which preserves rather than cuts off a grandparent's path to petition. That trigger is narrower than it may sound: it applies to a stepparent adoption following a parent's death, not to a stepparent adoption following divorce or remarriage generally, and whether an adoption by an unrelated party (rather than a stepparent) cuts off standing entirely was not confirmed for this guide.

How to Petition for Grandparent Visitation in Arkansas

A grandparent visitation case is filed in Circuit Court, either as an original action under Section 9-13-103 or, where the child is already under a non-parent's custody or guardianship, in the same court that issued that order under Section 9-13-107. No official statewide fee schedule was located for this filing, so confirm the current cost with the circuit clerk's office where you plan to file.

Mediation or a direct, informal conversation with the parent is worth attempting before filing anything, both because litigation is slow, expensive, and adversarial toward the child's parent, and because the statute itself is built around the parent's decision rather than the grandparent's wishes. Section 9-13-103 also lets a court order mediation services or counseling to resolve a visitation issue, but only where both parties agree to participate and one or both agree to pay. If a family decides to move forward, a family-law attorney licensed in Arkansas can evaluate the current facts and the current state of the law, and explain realistically what the case will require.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about Arkansas grandparent visitation and custody law. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Verify current details and consult a licensed Arkansas family-law attorney before relying on anything here for a specific situation.

Related Articles

• Grandparents' Rights by State
• Grandparent Visitation Rights
• Can Grandparents Get Custody?
• Arkansas Child Custody Laws
• Arkansas Divorce Laws

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Last updated: 2026-08-12.