Rule 24.1.Scope of Domestic Relations Actions

Rule 24.1 draws the boundary line for the domestic relations rules that follow it. It lists, by name, the kinds of superior court cases that count as domestic relations actions: divorce, alimony, equitable division of property, child custody, child support, legitimation, annulment, paternity, termination of parental rights connected to an adoption filed in superior court, contempt actions that enforce a domestic decree, petitions to modify a decree, Family Violence Act cases, actions to enforce a foreign alimony or child support judgment, and adoptions themselves.

The list matters because so many other rules in this chapter — financial affidavits, parenting plans, guardians ad litem, mandatory seminars — turn on whether a case is a domestic relations action in the first place. A judge, clerk, or lawyer can check a filing against this list to know which procedural requirements attach.

The rule closes with a catch-all: any direct or collateral attack on a judgment or order entered in one of these actions is treated as a domestic relations action too. That keeps a later motion to set aside a divorce decree, for example, inside the same procedural track as the original case rather than treated as an ordinary civil motion.