HB2662

THE CONTEXT: A parent who is not granted sole or joint legal decision-making is entitled to reasonable parenting time to ensure that the minor child has substantial, frequent, meaningful and continuing contact with the parent unless the court finds, after a hearing, that parenting time would endanger the child's physical, mental, moral or emotional health. A parenting time hearing may be requested under the following conditions: 1) a parent in any proceeding for marital dissolution, legal separation, annulment, paternity or modification of an earlier decree or judgment requests one; or 2) a person other than a parent, fil...

WHAT THE BILL DID: The final vetoed version would stipulate the court may take testimony from an expert witness in any parenting time proceeding in which a parent is alleged to have committed domestic violence or abuse, only if the expert witness has demonstrated both expertise and clinical experience in working with victims of domestic violence or abuse, specifies that the expertise demonstrated by the expert witness cannot include expertise and experience that was acquired solely from serving as a court appointee in a parenting time proceeding and cannot be solely of a forensic nature, and require all psychological testing, principles, diagnoses or concepts used by the aforementioned expert witness to have been empirically established and generally accepted as valid and reliable.

WHY IT MATTERED: The practical reason for this bill was to provide a clearer protection or process for families dealing with parenting time. It would stipulate the court may take testimony from an expert witness in any parenting time proceeding in which a parent is alleged to have committed domestic violence or abuse, only if the expert witness has demonstrated both expertise and clinical experience in working with victims of domestic violence or abuse, and would also specifies that the expertise demonstrated by the expert witness cannot include expertise and experience that was acquired solely from serving as a court appointee in a parenting time proceeding and cannot be solely of a forensic nature, rather than leave the current rule unchanged.