Rule 91.3.Post-Judgment Petition to Modify Legal Decision Making; Parenting Time; or Education Order

Rule 91.3 is the parenting modification rule, and its requirements are heavier than the money modifications in Rule 91.1.

What the petition must carry

Compliance with Rule 91; detailed facts supporting the modification; verification by the applicant or supporting affidavits as A.R.S. section 25-411 requires; and, where the order or decree was not entered by an Arizona court, the affidavit A.R.S. section 25-1039 requires. Service must satisfy Rule 91(j) and A.R.S. section 25-1035.

Two of those come from the interstate custody statutes -- the extra affidavit and the extra service requirement apply precisely when the existing order came from somewhere else, and they exist so the Arizona court can confirm it has authority to modify another state's order before it does.

Disclosure keyed to the last order

Five categories, and four of them measure from the same point -- since the last decree or judgment addressing legal decision-making or parenting time:

• current protective orders and their petitions involving a party or household member, or any prior order or petition filed since the last decree;
• for each parent and child, treatment providers and treatment periods for psychiatric or psychological issues, anger management, substance abuse or domestic violence;
• criminal charges and convictions of a party or household member, with date, description, location and documentation;
• Department of Child Safety investigations or proceedings, with the same detail; and
• relevant documents regarding any relevant statutory factor.

Compare Rule 49(d), which asks the same questions at the start of a case using fixed lookbacks -- 5 years for treatment, 10 for criminal charges and child safety matters. Post-judgment the window is whatever has happened since the last parenting order. The court already knows the history; what it needs is the change.

Education orders

If the court finds it in the children's best interests, any order granting modification must include an Education Order substantially conforming to Form 19 or Form 20 of Rule 97. Where one was previously issued, the court may vacate or modify it on the same best-interests standard.