The court’s opinion was decided on September 3, 2026, while an amended judgment was entered on October 19, according to the court record published by Justia and the District of Columbia Courts. A grandmother raising her two grandchildren can seek a civil protection order against their biological mother after a Washington, DC, appeals court ruled that their relationship qualifies as familial under local law. In ‘Allen v. Whitehead’, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s dismissal of Fonda Allen’s petition, holding that her blood relationship to the children and her legal custody of them, considered together, were sufficient to establish the required family connection.
The lower court concluded that Allen did not qualify as Whitehead’s “family member” under the District of Columbia’s Intrafamily Offenses Act. The appeals court examined how the statutory definition of “family member” should apply when a grandparent has legal custody of a child whose biological parent retains certain parental rights. Before Whitehead had been served with the protection-order petition, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction. The law permits individuals to petition for civil protection orders in qualifying cases involving intrafamily offenses. Its definition of a family member includes a person to whom the alleged offender is related by blood, adoption, legal custody, marriage or domestic partnership.
Because of the combination of their respective blood relationships to the children and Allen’s legal custody, in its opinion, the court said the relationship between Allen and Whitehead was covered by the law.
The record also included statements Whitehead made during the custody proceedings, according to the appeals court’s opinion. The court noted that Whitehead acknowledged going to Allen’s home, explaining that Allen had called her crazy and that she wanted to “show her crazy”. Allen, the children’s paternal grandmother, had been awarded permanent sole legal and physical custody of her two grandchildren following a custody dispute. Their biological mother, Tamieka Whitehead, retained the right to monthly supervised visits. The grandmother subsequently sought a civil protection order against Whitehead, alleging multiple incidents of verbal abuse and harassment, including an episode in which the mother allegedly banged loudly on her front door, shouted obscenities and threatened to kill her. Whitehead also testified during the custody proceeding that she hoped Allen would die and wanted her dead. The lower court was not persuaded that Allen and Whitehead’s relationship met that definition through legal custody. It also concluded that they were not otherwise related to each other through blood, adoption, marriage or domestic partnership. It held that these connections, considered together, established a sufficiently close familial relationship for the purposes of the Act.