D.C. recognizes protection-order jurisdiction for custodial grandmother against child’s mother

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals held that a paternal grandmother with permanent sole legal and physical custody of her grandchildren qualified as a family member of the children’s biological mother under the Intrafamily Offenses Act. In Allen v. Whitehead, the court reversed dismissal of the grandmother’s civil-protection-order petition for lack of jurisdiction and remanded for further proceedings.

The grandmother alleged repeated threats by the mother. The custody order permitted the mother supervised visitation, and her parental rights had not been terminated. The trial court dismissed the petition before service because it concluded that the grandmother and mother were not related in a way covered by the statute.

The appellate court relied on the circumstances in combination. Both women had close blood ties to the children, and the legal-custody order created an additional familial connection between them. Those connections together sufficed under the Act’s definition of family member. The court emphasized the statute’s remedial purpose and its history of focusing on the substance of family relationships.

The holding is deliberately limited. The court did not decide whether the parties’ blood connections through a common descendant alone would suffice, or whether legal custody alone would suffice. It also left open whether an unrelated foster parent or a District employee exercising legal custody could obtain a protection order against a biological parent, or the reverse.

The reversal establishes jurisdiction to consider the petition. It does not itself grant a protection order or resolve the merits of the alleged threats.