The State Bar Association of North Dakota Summer 2013 Gavel Magazine | Page 25

ment.14 The idea here was to allow the court to facilitate bonding between the child and the deployed parent. It should be noted that the UDPCVA’s enactment significantly changes the general rules regarding residential responsibility orders. While N.D.C.C. § 14-09-06.2(1) (m) (the “catch-all” best interest factor) has long allowed a court to consider “any other factors considered by the court to be relevant” to a particular dispute, the UDPCVA makes it clear a court may not consider a parent’s past or possible future deployment when making custody decisions unless the deployment would have a “significant impact on the best interests of the child.”15

1 N.D.C.C. §14-09.3. 2 N.D.C.C. §14-09.3-17 3 N.D.C.C. §14-09.3-09 4 N.D.C.C. §14-09.3-06 5 N.D.C.C. §14-09.3-15(2). 6 N.D.C.C. §14-09.3-03. 7 N.D.C.C. §14-09.3-13 8 N.D.C.C. §14-09.3-12(1). 9 N.D.C.C. §14-09.3-03. 10 50 U.S.C. appendix sections 521-522. 11 N.D.C.C. §14-09.3-06(3)(h). 12 N.D.C.C. §14-09.3-20. 13 N.D.C.C. §14-09.3-22-25. 14 N.D.C.C. §14-09.3-24. 15 N.D.C.C. §14-09-06.1(2)

Bradley Myers is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the Randy H. Lee Professor Bradley Parrish is the Assistant Dean for Student Life at the University of North Dakota School of Law

The Gavel Summer2013

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