Kentucky State Representative John Tilley recently introduced legislation to provide more protections to primary residential parents who are in the active duty military. Increasingly, under recent changes in Kentucky child custody and timesharing rules as interpreted by the Kentucky Supreme Court, these parents found it difficult to terminate a temporary custody order/agreement that was entered when the service person was deployed. Under this legislation, which is expected to be signed by the Governor, at the end of the deployment, the parties immediately revert to the previous timesharing schedule.
While the purpose behind this statute is certainly extremely well-meaning, this may, in some cases, result in hard facts making bad law. To automatically require a change in custody/timesharing can set up a bad situation for the child. It should still remain incumbent upon the family court judge to review the facts of the situation to ensure that the best interests of the child are being served. Regardless, if you find yourself on either side of this situation or will be in the near future, you need to schedule a consultation with skilled family law attorney as soon as practicable.
This legislation also adds other options for child visitation exchanges that will be discussed in future posts.
Labels: child custody, child support, divorce, divorce lawyer, divorce petition, visitation