Deployed Parent Custody — Deployment Alone Is Not a Change of Circumstances

What it's worth: Expedited hearing, a self-expiring temporary order, and a 90-day bar on permanent modification

• A deploying military parent may move for an expedited hearing to establish custody or visitation where none exists, or to modify an existing order for the deployment.
• A temporary order must state that its basis is the deployment, and terminates — with the permanent order resuming — within ten days after notification of the deploying parent’s ability to resume custody or visitation, unless the court finds resumption is no longer in the child’s best interest.
• The court may require the non-deploying parent to accommodate the deploying parent’s leave schedule and to facilitate contact by telephone, email and other electronic means.
• Untimely notice of leave may not be used to prevent contact between parent and child or to modify the permanent arrangement.
• On the deploying parent’s motion — or a family member’s motion with that parent’s consent — the court may delegate all or part of the deploying parent’s visitation to a family member with a close and substantial relationship to the child, for the duration of the deployment, if that is in the child’s best interest.
• No permanent order modifying an existing custody or visitation order may issue until ninety days after the deployment ends.
• Activation or deployment may not be the sole factor in granting or denying custody or visitation, and neither deployment nor the potential for future deployment is by itself a material change in circumstances.
• The court shall allow a deploying parent to give evidence by affidavit or electronically where deployment prevents a personal appearance.