The State Bar Association of North Dakota Summer 2013 Gavel Magazine | Page 24

NEW LAW AFFECTS JURISDICTION AND PROCEDURE FOR CASES INVOLVING THE CHILDREN OF DEPLOYED MILITARY PERSONNEL
by Bradley Myers and Bradley Parrish On March 22, 2013, Governor Dalrymple signed SB 2122, making North Dakota the first state to adopt the Uniform Deployed Parents Custody and Visitation Act (UDPCVA). 1 The UDPCVA addresses issues of parental responsibility and parenting time that arise when parents are deployed in military or other national service (it also repeals N.D.C.C 14-09-06.6(9), which formerly provided guidance in this area). The UDPCVA deals with issues arising upon the deployment of a parent with primary residential responsibility, often with little notice and to a post far away from home. Deployment often creates challenges in determining alternate residential responsibility arrangements during the deployment, ensuring maintenance of the bond between the child and the deployed parent, and resuming the prior residential responsibility arrangement after the deployed parent returns. The UDPCVA provides a more suitable framework for addressing these issues than either the provisions of N.D.R.Ct. 8.2 (interim orders) or N.D.C.C. § 14-09-06.6 (residential responsibility modification). Although the UDPCVA uses different terminology to describe residential arrangements for a child (e.g., “custodial responsibility,” “caretaking responsibility,” “limited contact”) than the terminology found elsewhere in Chapter 14-09 (e.g., “primary residential responsibility,” “parenting time”), the key concepts are substantially similar. Also, and like the grandparental visitation provisions of N.D.C.C. § 14-09-05.1, the UDPCVA contains provisions allowing non-parents with whom the child has developed a “close and substantial relationship” to exercise “limited contact” with the child.2 However, these provisions apply to any non-parent (which includes minors as well as adults, allowing for regular contact between halfsiblings or step-siblings). The parents may establish this limited contact by agreement; however, if the parties cannot agree the court must order this limited contact on the deployed parent’s motion unless the court finds the limited contact would be contrary to the child’s best interests. The idea was to ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????%????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Q???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Q???UA
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