Section 102.003(a)(9) Grandparent Standing | Benedict v. Hill (2024)

Steven Benedict and Rayma Benedict v. Tonya Hill and Charles Edward Hill, Jr., 03-24-00307-CV, July 10, 2026.

On appeal from 274th District Court of Hays County

Synopsis

Standing under Texas Family Code section 102.003(a)(9) does not require a nonparent to prove exclusive control of the child or total parental abandonment during the six-month statutory period. In Benedict v. Hill, the Third Court held that a grandparent may establish standing by proving actual care, control, and possession in a parent-like role, including a shared principal residence, even when a parent remained involved; but a stepparent outside the third degree of consanguinity does not qualify under that subsection.

Important Note

The Texas legislature amended Section 102.003(a)(9) to require exclusive care in suits filed after September, 2025. Rf. Acts 2025, 89th Leg., R.S., Ch. 402 (H.B. 2350), Sec. 1, eff. September 1, 2025. The new statute provides as follows: “(9) a person, other than a foster parent, relative, or designated caregiver of a child placed by the Department of Family and Protective Services, who has had exclusive care, control, and possession of the child for at least six months ending not more than 90 days preceding the date of the filing of the petition[.]”

Relevance to Family Law

This opinion matters in conservatorship modification practice, grandparent-access litigation, and any SAPCR standing fight involving extended family caregivers. For Texas family-law litigators, the case sharpens how to frame and prove nonparent standing under section 102.003(a)(9): the focus is functional parenting during the statutory window, not whether the legal parent disappeared entirely. It also underscores a separate but equally important point in divorce and custody litigation—status matters. A biological grandparent may qualify under the statute; a stepparent who is not related within the third degree of consanguinity does not.

Case Summary

Fact Summary

The Benedicts filed a modification SAPCR seeking conservatorship of their granddaughter, Sadie, and restrictions on both parents’ rights and possession. Rayma Benedict was Sadie’s maternal grandmother. Steven Benedict was Rayma’s husband and the child’s step-grandfather.

The evidence showed a long history of intergenerational living arrangements. According to Rayma, the parents and child moved onto the Benedicts’ property when Sadie was an infant, first in the main home and later in a guesthouse on the same property. Rayma described herself as having exercised parent-like care since the child’s birth, including nighttime infant care, bathing, food, clothing, shelter, transportation, educational assistance, payment of expenses, and participation in medical and therapy appointments.

The standing dispute centered on the statutory six-month period before suit was filed on January 26, 2022. Rayma testified that Sadie was living with the Benedicts part-time in July and August 2021 and full-time from September 2021 until filing. Another witness placed the beginning of full-time possession later, in early November 2021. Charles, the father, testified that during 2021 he believed Sadie resided in both places—the mother’s guesthouse and the Benedicts’ residence. The evidence also showed that the Benedicts provided substantial day-to-day care, transportation, activities, homeschooling at certain times, and financial support, while Tonya remained involved in some core parental tasks, including primarily taking Sadie to the doctor and handling school enrollment.

The trial court dismissed for lack of standing. It found, among other things, that the Benedicts’ possession was temporary and dependent on parental consent, that the parents had not abdicated parental duties, that the Benedicts had not proved six months of actual care, custody, and possession, and that they had not proved a shared principal residence during the required period.

Issues Decided

• Whether a grandparent may establish standing under Texas Family Code section 102.003(a)(9) by proving actual care, control, and possession for at least six months ending not more than 90 days before filing, even if a parent remained involved during that period.
• Whether section 102.003(a)(9) requires exclusive possession or proof that the parents abdicated their parental duties.
• Whether evidence of a shared principal residence and a parent-like caregiving role can satisfy section 102.003(a)(9).
• Whether a stepparent or step-grandparent not related to the child within the third degree of consanguinity has standing under section 102.003(a)(9).
• Whether dismissal could be sustained based on the absence of an affidavit tied to grandparent-access provisions under section 153.432.

Rules Applied

Section 102.003(a)(9), as applicable when suit was filed, authorized standing for “a person, other than a foster parent, who has had actual care, control, and possession of the child for at least six months ending not more than 90 days preceding the date of the filing of the petition.” The opinion treats that language as a functional, fact-driven standard focused on actual parenting conduct rather than formal legal authority.

The court worked within the Supreme Court of Texas’s standing framework in SAPCR cases, particularly In re H.S., 550 S.W.3d 151 (Tex. 2018). That line of authority teaches that actual care, control, and possession are evaluated by looking to the nonparent’s day-to-day exercise of a parent-like role. The inquiry is practical, not formalistic. It does not turn solely on financial support, isolated babysitting, or episodic help; nor does it require the parent’s complete disappearance from the child’s life.

The court also relied on the principle that SAPCR standing is purely statutory. A party seeking relief must fall within the statute’s text. That principle is especially important where a litigant’s relationship to the child is by affinity rather than consanguinity. Under the holding described in this case, a stepparent who is not related within the third degree of consanguinity is outside section 102.003(a)(9) for purposes of this standing theory.

The court further distinguished grandparent-access affidavit requirements under section 153.432 from standing under section 102.003(a)(9). In other words, a defect tied to one statutory path does not necessarily defeat a different and independently pleaded standing basis.

Application

The Third Court’s analysis appears to have focused on a common trial-court error in nonparent standing disputes: importing an exclusivity requirement into section 102.003(a)(9). The trial court’s findings emphasized that the parents had not abdicated their responsibilities, that the Benedicts’ possession depended on parental consent, and that the parents still cared and provided for the child. But those findings did not answer the statutory question. The question was whether Rayma actually exercised care, control, and possession for the required six-month period ending within 90 days before filing.

Against that backdrop, the appellate court treated the evidence as potentially sufficient as to Rayma because it showed much more than occasional childcare. The record reflected a shared residential arrangement on the family property, substantial daily caregiving, financial support, participation in schooling and healthcare, transportation, and an ongoing parent-like role. Critically, the father’s testimony that the child resided in both places during 2021 undercut any rigid theory that only one household could matter. Shared residence and shared caregiving do not defeat standing if the nonparent’s role was sufficiently parental in substance.

At the same time, the court did not equate all caregiving with standing. The opinion reinforces that practitioners must tie the evidence to the statutory time window and to the statutory components of care, control, and possession. Here, the chronology mattered. The fight was not over whether the Benedicts had ever cared for Sadie, but whether Rayma proved six qualifying months ending no more than 90 days before January 26, 2022.

Steven’s position was different. Even if he participated in the same caregiving conduct, he lacked the qualifying blood relationship the court required under this statutory pathway. The court therefore treated his affinity relationship as insufficient under section 102.003(a)(9).

Holding

As to Rayma Benedict, the court held that standing under Texas Family Code section 102.003(a)(9) does not require proof of exclusive control, exclusive possession, or total parental abdication. A grandparent may satisfy the statute by showing that, during the relevant six-month period, she exercised actual care, control, and possession in a parent-like role and shared a principal residence with the child, even though a parent remained involved. On that basis, the trial court’s dismissal was reversed in part and the case was remanded in part as to Rayma’s section 102.003(a)(9) standing claim.

As to Steven Benedict, the court held that a stepparent or step-grandparent who is not related to the child within the third degree of consanguinity does not have standing under section 102.003(a)(9) on these facts. The dismissal was therefore affirmed as to Steven.

The opinion also rejected the notion that the absence of an affidavit under the grandparent-access statute independently disposed of the section 102.003(a)(9) standing theory. The appellate court treated the statutory bases for standing separately rather than allowing a defect under one theory to collapse the entire case.

Practical Application

For practitioners representing grandparents or other nonparents, Benedict is an important reminder to build the standing case around function, duration, and residence. The best evidence is not abstract testimony that the client “helped raise the child,” but specific facts showing who woke the child, fed the child, transported the child, handled schooling, attended medical appointments, supervised activities, paid expenses, and provided the child’s day-to-day home base during the statutory six-month period.

For practitioners opposing standing, Benedict narrows the usefulness of arguments centered only on continued parental involvement. A parent’s presence in the child’s life is not, by itself, fatal to standing under section 102.003(a)(9). The stronger defensive strategy is to attack the statutory window, the continuity of residence, the principal-residence evidence, and whether the alleged conduct reflects true care, control, and possession rather than assistance, accommodation, or permissive babysitting.

The case also has strategic significance in modification suits following divorce decrees. Where children live in multi-generational households or move fluidly between a parent’s space and a grandparent’s space on the same property, litigators should expect standing fights to turn on the real-world parenting arrangement, not the labels the family used. The opinion gives nonparent litigants a pathway where the facts show a genuine co-parenting structure, but it also warns that affinity-based relatives cannot assume they qualify merely because they participated in the same caregiving.

Practitioners should also separate standing theories carefully in pleadings and proof. Do not let a dispute over grandparent access, significant-impairment affidavits, or fit-parent presumptions obscure the threshold analysis under section 102.003(a)(9). Standing under that subsection is its own statutory inquiry.

Checklists

Pleading Section 102.003(a)(9) Standing

• Plead the statutory basis expressly: Texas Family Code section 102.003(a)(9).
• Allege the precise six-month period of actual care, control, and possession.
• Allege that the six-month period ended not more than 90 days before filing.
• Plead concrete facts showing a parent-like role, not merely conclusions.
• Identify the child’s principal residence during the statutory period.
• If multiple standing theories are asserted, plead each separately and distinctly.

Building the Evidentiary Record for Grandparent Standing

• Create a timeline covering each week of the statutory six-month period.
• Gather testimony identifying where the child slept on school nights and weekends.
• Document transportation responsibilities for school, activities, and appointments.
• Collect school records, medical records, enrollment documents, and emergency contacts.
• Prove financial support with receipts, insurance records, invoices, and bank records.
• Present evidence of discipline, routines, meals, bathing, homework help, and supervision.
• Show participation in therapy, extracurriculars, educational decision-making, and healthcare.
• Use third-party witnesses who observed the living arrangement and daily parenting functions.

Defending Against a Plea to the Jurisdiction

• Do not rely on generalized testimony that the client “helped raise” the child.
• Tie every significant caregiving fact to dates within the statutory window.
• Address anticipated arguments about shared custody or continued parental involvement.
• Emphasize that exclusivity is not required under section 102.003(a)(9).
• Show that the nonparent’s role was parent-like in substance, not incidental or temporary.
• Clarify residence issues if the family occupied the same property in separate structures.

Opposing Nonparent Standing

• Challenge the continuity of the alleged six-month period.
• Test whether the child’s principal residence was actually with the parent.
• Distinguish caregiving from babysitting, temporary respite care, or financial generosity.
• Probe whether the alleged control included actual decision-making or only assistance.
• Use documents and neutral witnesses to rebut claims of full-time or principal residence.
• Separate evidence outside the statutory window from qualifying evidence within it.
• Raise relationship-status objections where the claimant is related only by affinity.

Avoiding the Benedicts’ Partial Loss

• Confirm whether every petitioner independently fits the statutory text.
• Do not assume a step-relative can “ride along” on the biological relative’s standing.
• Vet all alternative statutory standing theories before filing.
• Avoid overstating the law by alleging “exclusive control” if exclusivity cannot be proved.
• Support every asserted statutory path with its own required allegations and evidence.
• Anticipate that one petitioner may survive jurisdiction while another may not.

Citation

Steven Benedict and Rayma Benedict v. Tonya Hill and Charles Edward Hill, Jr., No. 03-24-00307-CV, ___ S.W.3d ___ (Tex. App.—Austin July 10, 2026, no pet. h.).

Full Opinion

Read the full opinion here

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