Rule 353.Types of Proceedings

Rule 353 draws the line around what the expedited child support process can and cannot decide. If a case is an IV-D case, establishing, modifying, or enforcing support must go through this process rather than district court, and an enforcement of spousal maintenance travels with it when it is combined with a support issue. That mandatory reach is what makes the expedited process the default forum for support cases, not an optional shortcut.

Counties get some choice too. A county may decide to let parentage actions and civil contempt matters into the expedited process as well. Parentage cases run on two tracks depending on how much the parties agree to: when they agree or stipulate to the parent-child relationship, legal and physical custody, parenting time, and the child's name all together, or when the pleadings squarely raised every one of those issues and a party then fails to respond or appear, the magistrate resolves all of it in a single order. An agreement limited to just the parent-child relationship and physical custody produces a final order only on those two; the magistrate adds parenting time and the child's name to that order only if the parties separately agree to them, and sends anything still unresolved to district court, where it stays pending until a district judge rules on it. And when the parties cannot even agree that a parent-child relationship exists, the magistrate orders genetic testing first, then refers the whole matter to district court if the parties still disagree once the results are in.

Other matters are off limits entirely, no matter what a county might prefer. Non-IV-D cases, custody and parenting-time disputes outside a permitted parentage action, establishing or modifying spousal maintenance, orders for protection, property division, contempt that could lead to a criminal penalty, criminal non-support, motions to vacate a recognition of paternity or a paternity adjudication, and challenges to the constitutionality of a statute or rule all stay in district court, and so does an enforcement proceeding barred under Rule 373. Even where a county lets civil contempt matters into the expedited process, an evidentiary hearing in a contempt matter still has to be held in district court instead. Rule 353 does let a magistrate act on an uncontested request to change venue, but sends a contested venue dispute to district court for decision instead.

A support case combined with a prohibited issue does not have to run the expedited process gauntlet at all. A party can bring that kind of combined case directly to district court from the start, so long as the other parties and the county agency get timely notice. A district judge who takes on such a case decides everything, but if the support issue needs a hearing the judge cannot conduct alone, the judge can refer just the support piece to a magistrate, along with a clear statement of what needs deciding and, where possible, a temporary support figure to hold things over. The same problem can also surface mid-case in the expedited process itself: once a prohibited issue turns up there, the parties can agree in writing to send the whole matter to district court without a hearing before the magistrate, or, absent that agreement, the magistrate can refer the entire matter on the magistrate's own initiative, setting a temporary support amount first if needed. That temporary support order becomes permanent 180 days after the notice of filing was served, unless the district court has ruled on permanent support by then.