Contested divorce cases can sometimes\u00a0take a year or more to complete.\u00a0 When the husband and wife have children in common, one or\u00a0both of them are often unwilling or unable to wait until the divorce is finalized to get a child custody order\u00a0\/ parenting time\u00a0schedule in place.\u00a0 Often, one spouse has insufficient\u00a0financial resources to survive\u00a0and simply can’t wait\u00a0up to a year or more to get\u00a0spousal maintenance or child support started.<\/p>\n
In such situations, either spouse may file a motion with the court seeking temporary orders.\u00a0 Upon receiving the temporary orders motion, the court may\u00a0schedule a hearing to receive evidence and decide what temporary orders, if any, to issue.\u00a0 Temporary orders the court may issue include child custody, parenting time, spousal maintenance, child support, exclusive\u00a0use of a home or vehicles, and even a temporary equal division of liquid assets.\u00a0 A.R.S. Section 25-315 B,\u00a0C and E.<\/p>\n
Temporary orders are not necessarily emergency<\/em> orders.\u00a0 It\u00a0often takes three months or more\u00a0to get temporary orders issued after\u00a0one party files a motion for temporary orders.\u00a0 Sometimes a judge is only able to set a hearing on temporary orders a month or two before the final trial.\u00a0 In such instances the parties may decide it doesn’t make sense to spend the time and money on a temporary orders hearing when their final trial will be just a short time later.<\/p>\n Temporary orders hearings are\u00a0essentially small court\u00a0trials to decide the issues raised in the\u00a0motion for temporary orders.\u00a0 Each party must bring into court\u00a0witnesses and documentary evidence to establish the claims she is making.\u00a0\u00a0 Temporary orders hearings can, therefore,\u00a0be quite complicated and expensive.\u00a0\u00a0Any temporary orders issued, however, only continue in force until the divorce is finalized, and the temporary orders do not set any precedent at trial.\u00a0 A.R.S. Section 25-315 F.\u00a0 Even though the parties may present extensive evidence and argument on certain issues at a temporary orders hearing, all that evidence must be presented again at the final divorce trial if\u00a0the case doesn’t settle first.<\/p>\n Over the last several years, it seems fewer divorce litigants are pursuing temporary orders.\u00a0 This may be caused by the way the court schedules hearings now.\u00a0 Before the court will set a temporary orders evidentiary hearing or a final trial, the court usually first holds a scheduling hearing called a Resolution Management Conference (“RMC”).\u00a0\u00a0 When the parties get to the RMC, they often find that the judge can get\u00a0them in for a final trial only a couple of months after the first available temporary orders evidentiary hearing date.\u00a0 When they hear this, the parties\u00a0 frequently decide to forego the temporary orders evidentiary hearing and\u00a0instead spend their resources\u00a0on the final trial. \u00a0As\u00a0I stated above, it usually doesn’t make sense to spend the time and money on an evidentiary hearing to get orders in place\u00a0that will expire just a short time later when the divorce is finalized.<\/p>\n In certain cases, however, temporary orders are imperative, such as when one parent is depriving the other of any meaningful\u00a0parenting time with the children.\u00a0 Individuals should consult with a qualified attorney to evaluate whether it makes sense in their particular case to pursue temporary orders.<\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2012 by Scoresby Family Law \u2013 J. Kyle Scoresby, P.C. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Contested divorce cases can sometimes\u00a0take a year or more to complete.\u00a0 When the husband and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[213,68,94],"class_list":["post-1276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-divorce-process","tag-child-support","tag-parenting-time","tag-temporary-orders"],"yoast_head":"\n