Family violence tears through households without regard to legal formalities. A grandmother faces exploitation by her own daughter. The granddaughter seeks to protect her. But there’s a complication: the daughter gave up the granddaughter for adoption decades ago, and her parental rights were terminated. Does that termination destroy the granddaughter’s legal standing to seek a protective order for her biological grandmother?
This question forces courts to reconcile competing statutory schemes in Texas law. On one hand, termination of parental rights “divests the parent and the child of all legal rights and duties with respect to each other.” On the other hand, Texas law defines family relationships by consanguinity, blood relationships, for purposes of family violence protective orders. When these statutory frameworks are at play, which prevails?
The court addressed this situation in Taylor v. Norton, No. 06-25-00014-CV (Tex. App.–Texarkana Nov. 21, 2025). This case provides an opportunity to examine how termination of parental rights operates within the broader statutory landscape governing family relationships in Texas as this question can come up in elder abuse cases and guardianship cases as it also applies to mixed families with children born outside of the marriage.
Facts & Procedural History
The biological relationships were undisputed. Hatridge gave birth to Taylor. Taylor gave birth to Norton. Taylor placed Norton for adoption as an infant. An unrelated couple adopted Norton, and Taylor’s parental rights were terminated as part of that adoption process.
Years later, Norton sought a protective order to protect her biological grandmother, Hatridge, from what Norton alleged was “abuse and exploitation” by Taylor. The trial court granted a temporary protective order and scheduled a hearing on whether to issue a permanent protective order.
Before the hearing, Taylor filed a motion to vacate the temporary order. Her argument was straightforward: Norton was adopted as an infant and therefore lacked standing to seek a protective order under Section 82.002 of the Texas Family Code. Taylor attempted an interlocutory appeal, but the appellate court dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction.
Following a second evidentiary hearing, the trial court entered a protective order. The court found that Taylor had “engaged in acts of family violence that constituted a continuing threat of family violence in the foreseeable future.” The trial court also made a legal finding that adoption of a child does not extinguish consanguinity, and therefore an adopted child is not prevented from exercising the child’s right as a ‘family member’ to bring a protective order to protect the child’s biological relatives under the provisions of the Texas Family Code.
Taylor appealed, challenging Norton’s standing to seek the protective order.
Who May Seek Family Violence Protective Orders?
Section 82.002(a) of the Texas Family Code governs who may file applications for family violence protective orders. The statute provides that “an adult member of the family may apply for a protective order to protect any other member of the applicant’s family.” This language raises the question as to what constitutes a “family” for these purposes?
The Texas Family Code answers this question in Section 71.003, which defines “family” to include “individuals related by consanguinity as determined under Section 573.022 Government Code.” This cross-reference to the Government Code is where the analysis becomes more complex.
Section 573.022(a) of the Texas Government Code defines consanguinity. It states: “Two individuals are related to each other by consanguinity if one is a descendant of the other or they share a common ancestor.” This definition focuses on biological relationships. The statute clarifies that “an adopted child is considered to be a child of the adoptive parent for this purpose.”
The statutory framework creates a series of connected requirements. To seek a family violence protective order for another person, the applicant must be an adult member of the family. To be a family member, the applicant must be related by consanguinity. To be related by consanguinity, the applicant must be a descendant or share a common ancestor with the person being protected.
What Happens When Parental Rights Are Terminated?
Taylor’s argument centered on Section 161.206(b) of the Texas Family Code, which states that “an order terminating the parent-child relationship divests the parent and the child of all legal rights and duties with respect to each other, except that the child retains the right to inherit from and through the parent unless the court otherwise provides.”
Taylor argued that this divestment of “all legal rights and duties” necessarily included any right to claim family status for purposes of protective orders. If termination eliminates all legal rights between parent and child, it must also eliminate the legal recognition of family relationships flowing through that terminated parent. She reinforced this by citing Section 162.017, which provides that adoption creates a parent-child relationship “as if the child were born to the adoptive parents during marriage.”
Taylor’s position found support in Patton v. Shamburger, where the Texas Supreme Court held that adopted children could not claim workers’ compensation benefits through their biological father, who died on the job years after giving them up for adoption.
The Inheritance Exception Creates a Problem for “All Means All”
The court examined whether Sections 161.206(b) and 162.017 of the Family Code blocked the operation of Section 573.022(a) of the Government Code. Taylor had advanced an “all means all” interpretation, arguing that the divestment of “all legal rights and duties” must encompass every possible legal relationship. The court found this sweeping interpretation unpersuasive because Section 161.206(b) preserves “the child’s right to inherit from and through the parent” even after termination.
This preservation proved significant because inheritance is fundamentally a matter of descent. When someone dies without a will, their estate “descends and passes to the person’s children and the children’s descendants” under Section 201.001(b) of the Texas Estates Code. The court reasoned that the Legislature enacted Section 573.022(a) with “complete knowledge of the existing law.” The Legislature knew that “descendants” is embedded in the concept of inheritance and that “descendant” is included in the definition of consanguinity. Therefore, when the Legislature preserved inheritance rights via Section 161.206(b), it necessarily preserved the legal effect of the biological descent relationship.
This created what the court described as “a very fine” question: When the Legislature preserved inheritance rights that flow from biological descent, did it simultaneously mean to cut off the legal effect of that same biological descent relationship for purposes of consanguinity?
Prior Cases Point Toward Context-Specific Analysis
Taylor relied heavily on Patton v. Shamburger, but the court found that case distinguishable. Patton dealt with workers’ compensation benefits, which are statutory creations rather than matters of inheritance. Even the Patton majority acknowledged that if the rights “were acquired by inheritance, the money belongs to them.” The statutory language had also changed since Patton. The 1968 Adoption Act stated that adopted children “shall thereafter be deemed for every purpose the child of its parent or parents by adoption.” Current statutes no longer use that “for every purpose” language.
The court also examined Figueroa v. Santos, which held that termination and adoption severed ties within the meaning of our guest statute. But guest statutes were being repealed or declared unconstitutional throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Figueroa appeared to be a decision to join that trend rather than a broad declaration about termination’s effects.
A more recent case held that biological children whose parental relationships had been terminated lacked standing under the Wrongful Death Act to sue regarding a biological parent’s death. But, the case, like Patton, began with the understanding that wrongful death benefits are statutory creations, not matters of inheritance. The court used Section 161.206(b) as a tool in construing the Wrongful Death Act, not as a blanket obstacle to recognizing biological relationships.
Grandparent Access Rights Reinforce This Reading
The court also examined statutory grandparent access rights under Chapter 153 of the Texas Family Code. Section 153.432(a) provides that a biological or adoptive grandparent may request possession of or access to a grandchild. These access rights are often based on the blood relationship between grandparent and grandchild.
Under a hypothetical where Taylor’s rights had been terminated but Norton had gone to live with her biological father rather than being adopted by unrelated parties, Hatridge could have sought access to Norton under Section 153.433(a)(1). Under that scenario, termination of Taylor’s parental rights would not have cut off the legal effect of the biological relationship between Hatridge and Norton. The biological relationship would be the basis for Hatridge seeking access.
Grandparent access rights were not part of the adoption statute when Patton was decided, and they did not arise until 1995. The existence of these rights demonstrates that the Legislature has recognized biological relationships between grandparents and grandchildren even after the termination of parental rights.
The Takeaway
The court held that termination of parental rights does not eliminate consanguinity for purposes of family violence protective orders. When the Legislature preserved a terminated child’s right to inherit “from and through” a biological parent, it preserved the legal effect of the biological descent relationship. That same biological descent relationship forms the basis of consanguinity under Texas law. Reading these statutes to preserve biological descent for both inheritance and consanguinity creates harmony within the statutory framework, while destroying the relationship for one purpose while preserving it for another would create disharmony. Adopted adults retain standing to seek protective orders for biological grandparents even when their biological parents’ rights were terminated, recognizing that family violence protection and inheritance rights both flow from the same biological relationships that termination cannot completely erase.
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