Colorado

Family Law

Family Law

Section 14-13-112 – Cooperation between courts – preservation of records

(1) A court of this state may request the appropriate court of another state to:

(a) Hold an evidentiary hearing;
(b) Order a person to produce or give evidence pursuant to procedures of that state;
(c) Order that an evaluation be made with respect to the custody or allocation of parental responsibilities with respect to a child involved in a pending proceeding;
(d) Forward to the court of this state a certified copy of the transcript of the record of the hearing, the evidence otherwise presented, and any evaluation prepared in compliance with the request; and
(e) Order a party to a child-custody proceeding or any person having physical custody of the child to appear in the proceeding with or without the child.
(2) Upon request of a court of another state, a court of this state may hold a hearing or enter an order described in subsection (1) of this section.
(3) Travel and other necessary and reasonable expenses incurred under subsections (1) and (2) of this section may be assessed against the parties according to the law of this state.
(4) A court of this state shall preserve the pleadings, orders, decrees, records of hearings, evaluations, and other pertinent records with respect to a child-custody proceeding until the child attains eighteen years of age. Upon appropriate request by a court or law enforcement official of another state, the court shall forward a certified copy of those records.

C.R.S. § 14-13-112

L. 2000: Entire article R&RE, p. 1523, § 1, effective July 1.

OFFICIAL COMMENT

This section is the heart of judicial cooperation provision of this Act. It provides mechanisms for courts to cooperate with each other in order to decide cases in an efficient manner without causing undue expense to the parties. Courts may request assistance from courts of other States and may assist courts of other States.

The provision on the assessment of costs for travel provided in the UCCJA § 19 has been changed. The UCCJA provided that the costs may be assessed against the parties or the State or county. Assessment of costs against a government entity in a case where the government is not involved is inappropriate and therefore that provision has been removed. In addition, if the State is involved as a party, assessment of costs and expenses against the State must be authorized by other law. It should be noted that the term “expenses” means out-of-pocket costs. Overhead costs should not be assessed as expenses.

No other substantive changes have been made. The term “social study” as used in the UCCJA was replaced with the modern term: “custody evaluation.” The Act does not take a position on the admissibility of a custody evaluation that was conducted in another State. It merely authorizes a court to seek assistance of, or render assistance to, a court of another State.

This section combines the text of Sections 19-22 of the UCCJA.