Family law: child custody.

Existing law provides that a party's absence, relocation, or failure to comply with custody and visitation orders is not, by itself, sufficient to justify modifying a custody or visitation order if the party's absence, relocation, or failure is due to his or her activation to military service, mobilization in support of combat or other military operation, or military deployment out of state, as defined. Existing law authorizes a court to issue a temporary order for custody and visitation for the period in which the party will be deployed, mobilized, or on temporary duty. Under existing law, there is a presumption that, upon the return of that party, the order shall revert back to the custody order that was in place before the modification unless the reversion is not in the best interest of the child. This bill would, after the deploying party returns from deployment, prohibit the court from ordering a child custody evaluation as part of its review of a temporary order unless the party opposing reversion to the prior custody order makes a prima facie showing that reversion would not be in the child's best interest. Further, the bill would provide that neither a child's absence from the state during a parent's deployment nor a nondeploying parent's relocation during a parent's deployment while a temporary modification order is in effect would terminate the family court's jurisdiction for later custody modifications. This bill would also prohibit a parent's deployment from being used as a basis for asserting that the state court is an inconvenient forum for custody orders. The bill would additionally express the intent of the Legislature that family courts, to the extent feasible given existing resources and court practices, prioritize and expedite child custody cases when a military parent is deployed or returns from deployment.