As amended through August 22, 2024
Rule 6.2 - Simultaneous Juvenile Proceedings and Legal Decision-Making, Parenting Time and Child Support Proceedings(A) When a pending family law proceeding and a pending dependency, guardianship or private severance proceeding involve the same parties, any party may move to consolidate the proceedings in the Juvenile Court by written or oral motion. The Juvenile Court judge may consult with the Family Court judge concerning consolidation, or the Juvenile Court judge may consolidate the proceedings on its own motion. Written motions for consolidation shall be filed in the juvenile case and copied to the family law case. The assigned juvenile division shall rule on any such motion to consolidate. Legal decision-making, parenting time and child support issues, other than in Title IV-D cases, may be litigated in the juvenile division once the matters are consolidated in the Juvenile Court.(B) Upon an adjudication of dependency, the Juvenile Court will consolidate any family law matter concerning the same parties with the juvenile matter to prevent conflicting orders in the family and juvenile cases and to allow the Juvenile Court, if appropriate, to determine legal decision-making and parenting time issues necessary to protect a child. Title IV-D child support matters, however, are excluded from the provisions of this rule and should be addressed only by the assigned Title IV-D judicial officer. Any such orders must be made prior to the dismissal of the dependency matter and prior to unconsolidating the juvenile matter from the family law matter.(C) To protect the confidentiality of the Juvenile Court matter, a separate minute entry will be filed in the family law matter showing whether the Court ordered the family law matter consolidated with the juvenile court matter. The minute entry from the juvenile matter will likewise reflect whether the Court ordered a family law matter consolidated with the juvenile court matter.(D) During any dependency/guardianship proceeding in the Juvenile Court and following the consolidation of the family law matter, the assigned juvenile division may suspend, modify or terminate a child support order for current support if the parent entitled to receive the child support is no longer entitled to child support as a result of a change in the legal and/or physical custody of the child. The assigned juvenile division will direct that the wage assignment be quashed or modified. The assigned juvenile division may also affirm previous orders for past due support or child support arrears or make other appropriate orders. Title IV-D child support matters, however, are excluded and will be addressed only by the assigned Title IV-D judicial officer.(E) The assigned juvenile division may temporarily unconsolidate the family law matter or certain proceedings thereof and return it to the assigned family law division to allow that division to conduct proceedings during a dependency or guardianship matter.Added effective 7/1/2018.