De Pinto v. De Pinto

Order unanimously reversed, without costs, and matter remitted to Supreme Court, Erie County, for further proceedings, in accordance with the following memorandum: The court erred in denying without a hearing defendant’s application for visitation with his eight-year-old son. We recently restated the general rule regarding visitation: “ ‘Visitation is always to be premised upon a consideration of the best interests of the children (.Finlay v Finlay, 240 NY 429 , 433-434); however, denying visitation to a natural parent is a drastic remedy and should only be done where there are compelling reasons {Herb v Herb, 8 AD2d 419 ), and there must be substantial evidence that such visitation is detrimental to the children’s welfare {Farhi v Farhi, 64 AD2d 840 ; Hotze v Hotze, 57 AD2d 85 , mot for lv to app den 42 NY2d 805 )’ {Chirumbolo v Chirumbolo, 75 AD2d 992 , 993)” {Parker v Ford, 89 AD2d 806 , 806-807). Here, the court did not correlate its decision to deny visitation to defendant with the