Colo. Rev. Stat. § 14-13-304

Current through Chapter 123 of the 2024 Legislative Session

Section 14-13-304 - Temporary visitation or parenting time

(1) A court of this state that does not have jurisdiction to modify a child-custody determination may issue a temporary order enforcing:

(a) A visitation or parenting time schedule made by a court of another state; or

(b) The visitation or parenting time provisions of a child-custody determination of another state that does not provide for a specific visitation or parenting time schedule.

(2) If a court of this state makes an order under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section, it shall specify in the order a period that it considers adequate to allow the petitioner to obtain an order from a court having jurisdiction under criteria substantially in conformity with those criteria specified in part 2 of this article. The order remains in effect until an order is obtained from the other court or the period expires.

C.R.S. § 14-13-304

L. 2000: Entire article R&RE, p. 1531, § 1, effective July 1.

OFFICIAL COMMENT

This section authorizes a court to issue a temporary order if it is necessary to enforce visitation rights without violating the rules on nonmodification contained in Section 14-13-303. Therefore, if there is a visitation schedule provided in the custody determination that was made in accordance with Part 2, a court can issue an order under this section implementing the schedule. An implementing order may include make-up or substitute visitation.

A court may also issue a temporary order providing for visitation if visitation was authorized in the custody determination, but no specific schedule was included in the custody determination. Such an order could include a substitution of a specific visitation schedule for "reasonable and seasonable."

However, a court may not, under subsection (1)(b) provide for a permanent change in visitation. Therefore, requests for a permanent change in the visitation schedule must be addressed to the court with exclusive, continuing jurisdiction under Section 14-13-202 or modification jurisdiction under Section 14-13-203. As under Section 14-13-204, subsection (2) of this section requires that the temporary visitation order stay in effect only long enough to allow the person who obtained the order to obtain a permanent modification in the State with appropriate jurisdiction under Part 2.