Parents seeking temporary orders for legal decision-making or parenting time will be granted faster hearings under a bill signed by Governor Jan Brewer this legislative session. Under Senate Bill 1073–the new version of A.R.S. Section 25-407–a temporary orders hearing must be set within sixty days after a parent files a motion for temporary orders unless “extraordinary circumstances exist and the court is not able to schedule the hearing” within the sixty-day timeframe.
The sixty-day limit will be an improvement in most cases. Currently, it can take 30-60 days after filing a motion for temporary orders for the court to set a scheduling hearing, usually called a “resolution management conference”, or RMC. After the RMC, it can take another 30-90 days to get an evidentiary hearing on temporary orders. The total wait-time from filing a motion for temporary orders until the dispositive hearing is as much as two times longer under the current, typical scheduling framework than it will be under the new law.
Getting temporary orders established quickly in child custody cases is paramount. In many cases, the time between filing for temporary orders and actually getting temporary orders is uncertain, unnerving and simply chaotic. In a divorce case involving children, neither parent has superior rights to the other until the court determines the parents’ rights to the children. During this interim period, the parents and the children are in limbo. Sometimes a parent attempts to keep the children from the other parent simply to hurt or spite the other parent, completely disregarding what is best for the children. Setting temporary orders hearings sooner will reduce the time parents and children have to live without a specific parenting time schedule to rely on.
Still, the court will have an “out.” If the court makes written findings on the record of the “extraordinary circumstances” that prevent it from meeting the sixty-day requirement, the court can schedule a later hearing. I don’t like to be cynical, but I worry some judges will essentially disregard the new law by simply citing that their calendars don’t allow a hearing within sixty days–that there are no openings on the calendar. Instead, I hope judges will now begin deliberately leaving room on their calendars to schedule temporary orders hearings within sixty days, since these hearings should rightfully be given priority under the new statute.
This statute should become effective ninety days after the legislature adjourns the current session.
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