Louisiana Grandparents' Rights: Visitation, Custody, and Post-Adoption Contact

No grandparent in Louisiana, or anywhere else in the country, has an automatic right to see a grandchild. Courts must give a fit parent's decision real constitutional weight, and Louisiana's own courts have upheld its visitation statutes specifically because they respect that deference rather than override it.

Still, Louisiana is worth a close look for one reason: it is one of the few states whose code says anything at all about contact after an adoption is final. Both of its post-adoption routes are narrower than they first appear, and this guide covers them along with the two pre-adoption visitation statutes, the case law that keeps them constitutional, and the harder custody track.

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

Louisiana's Two Grandparent Visitation Statutes

Louisiana splits grandparent visitation into two statutes, and which one applies turns on the parents' marital status. Civil Code Article 136(B) reaches grandparents "if the parents of the child are not married or cohabitating with a person in the manner of married persons or if the parents of the child have filed a petition for divorce." Article 136(E) sends everyone else to La. R.S. 9:344: married parents who have not filed for divorce, and parents living in concubinage.

Under R.S. 9:344, a grandparent may seek reasonable visitation when a party to a marriage dies, is interdicted, or is incarcerated (Paragraph A); when parents living in concubinage have a child and one of them dies or is incarcerated (Paragraph B); or when the parents of a child of the marriage have lived apart for six months and extraordinary circumstances exist, which the statute says include a court determination that a parent is abusing a controlled dangerous substance (Paragraph D).

One distinction trips people up. A still-married couple who are simply living apart, with no divorce petition filed, are not under Article 136 at all. Article 136(E) routes them to R.S. 9:344(D), which requires both six months apart and extraordinary circumstances, a materially harder showing than Article 136(B) asks for.

Article 136(D) supplies the best-interest factor list for an Article 136(B) petition, and that list is unusual: it expressly requires courts to consider "a parent's fundamental constitutional right to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their own children and the traditional presumption that a fit parent will act in the best interest of their children," alongside the length and quality of the prior relationship, whether the child needs guidance the relative can provide, the child's own preference if he is mature enough to express one, and the mental and physical health of the child and the relative.

Only one paragraph of R.S. 9:344 borrows that list. Paragraph D, the six-months-apart trigger, directs the court to "consider the same factors contained in Civil Code Article 136(D)." Paragraphs A, B, and C say only that the court may grant visitation "in its discretion" if it "would be in the best interest of the child," with no reference to the 136(D) factors and so no express statutory hook for the fit-parent deference factor.

Why Louisiana's Statutes Have Survived Constitutional Challenge

In Galjour v. Harris, 795 So. 2d 350 (La. App. 1 Cir. 2001), Louisiana's First Circuit Court of Appeal upheld R.S. 9:344 against a challenge brought after Troxel v. Granville. The court distinguished Louisiana's law from the Washington statute the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in Troxel, pointing to three features: Louisiana's statute is narrowly drawn to specific, enumerated triggers rather than allowing "any person" to petition at any time; it restricts who can petition to grandparents of the deceased, interdicted, or incarcerated parent; and it requires an affirmative best-interest finding without shifting the burden onto the fit parent to disprove the value of visitation. The decision was not unanimous, and it is an intermediate appellate ruling rather than a Louisiana Supreme Court decision, so it should be read as persuasive and controlling within its jurisdiction rather than a final word from the state's highest court.

Custody Is a Separate, Harder Track

Visitation is not custody. Civil Code Article 133 allows a court to award custody to a non-parent, including a grandparent with whom the child has been living in a stable environment, or to another suitable person, but only when awarding custody to either parent would cause the child substantial harm. That is a genuinely harder, harm-based standard than the visitation statutes above. For the fuller custody picture, see Louisiana child custody laws.

After Adoption: Two Narrow Routes

A final adoption decree in Louisiana cuts the biological family off almost completely, and which article says so depends on the type of adoption. Children's Code Article 1218 governs agency adoptions, Article 1240 private adoptions, and Article 1256 intrafamily adoptions. All three are titled "Effect of final decree," and each relieves the biological parents and all other blood relatives of their legal duties and divests them of their legal rights regarding the adopted child, expressly including the right of inheritance from the adopted child.

The inheritance carve-out runs one direction only. The child's right to inherit from his parents and other blood relatives survives the adoption. The relatives' right to inherit from the child does not.

Louisiana then leaves two openings, and it is worth being precise about what each one actually is.

The first is Chapter 14 of the adoption title. Article 1264 allows limited visitation with an already-adopted child, but only two categories of grandparent have standing: the natural parents of a deceased parent whose child is thereafter adopted, and the parents of a party who has forfeited the right to object to the adoption under Article 1245. Article 1245 is the consent-not-necessary provision used in intrafamily and stepparent adoptions. So this route is closed to a grandparent whose own adult child is alive and consented to the adoption. The request is made by written motion filed with the court that rendered the final decree, under Article 1265.

The second is Chapter 14-A, "continuing contact," and it is not a petition route. Article 1269.1 permits these arrangements only where "the adopting parents and biological relative or foster parent voluntarily execute the agreement," and Article 1269.3(A) requires the agreement to be signed by the adopting parents. Article 1269.2, captioned "Continuing post-adoption contact; foster child adoptions," operates in an agency adoption in which the department is the custodian of the child. Once an agreement is approved and incorporated into a judgment, Article 1269.8 allows a motion to enforce, modify, or terminate it, and only after the parties have attempted in good faith to mediate. No provision lets a grandparent obtain continuing contact over an adoptive parent's objection.

Read together, these routes are narrower, not broader, than the stepparent exceptions many states offer. Chapter 14 turns on a specific standing status, and Chapter 14-A turns on the adopting parents' voluntary signature and, in practice, on a foster or agency adoption.

Filing for Visitation: Court, Process, and Cost

Louisiana family-law matters of this kind are generally heard in the District Court, or the specialized Family or Juvenile Court in parishes that have one, handling the underlying custody or adoption matter. Article 136 and R.S. 9:344 read as statutes with standing conditions tied to a status, such as death, incarceration, or six months of separation, rather than statutes that require a currently pending divorce or custody case in every circumstance, though a reader should confirm this with the court or an attorney before filing.

There is no official statewide fee schedule found for these petitions. Filing fees for family-law matters in Louisiana are generally set at the parish level, so confirm the current amount with the court where you plan to file.

Consider Mediation Before You File

Litigation is expensive, slow, and adversarial toward the child's parent, and filing a petition, even a strong one, can strain the family relationship you are trying to protect. Before filing, consider a direct conversation with the parent, involving a trusted family member as a go-between, or working with a family mediator. Many Louisiana courts encourage or require mediation once a custody or visitation matter is filed.

What Are Your Realistic Odds in Louisiana?

Louisiana's pre-adoption statutes are narrowly triggered rather than open to any grandparent at any time, which means a grandparent has to fit one of the enumerated situations, a divorce petition, an unmarried or non-cohabitating household, death, interdiction, incarceration, or six months apart under extraordinary circumstances, before a court will even weigh the best-interest factors. Within that structure, a grandparent with a documented relationship and a clear best-interest case has a real path, particularly given how the Article 136(D) factor list is written. After an adoption the picture tightens considerably: Chapter 14 visitation is limited to the two standing categories in Article 1264, and Chapter 14-A continuing contact depends on the adopting parents signing an agreement, so neither is a fallback a grandparent can compel. If you decide to pursue a petition, a family-law attorney licensed in Louisiana can evaluate which statute applies to your situation and how strong your specific facts are.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about Louisiana grandparent visitation and custody law. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Outcomes depend heavily on which statute applies and the specific facts of a family's situation. Verify current details with the court where you plan to file or a licensed Louisiana attorney before relying on anything here for a specific situation.

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Last updated: 2026-08-12.