§ 140A.063.Jurisdiction

Three sentences supplying the judicial authority the rest of the subchapter assumes.

If a petition is filed in the district court in any county, that court has jurisdiction to hear and determine the matter and to enter any order required to implement this chapter.

"Any order required to implement this chapter" is broad on purpose. The petitions arriving under this subchapter ask for different things — modification, setting aside, enforcement, an order compelling an answer during an examination — and this avoids listing them.

"In any county" resolves what would otherwise be a gap. Several sections give a choice of venue, and this confirms that whichever court receives the petition has the power to decide it.

Any final order is subject to appeal. That is worth stating, because an order on a pre-suit investigative demand does not resolve a lawsuit and is not plainly final for appellate purposes.

Without it, a person ordered to produce privileged material would have to disobey and be held in contempt to obtain review — which is precisely the position the appellate courts try to avoid.

Failure to comply with a final order is punishable by the court as contempt.

Contempt is the enforcement mechanism the whole subchapter rests on. A demand is not self-executing; noncompliance leads to an enforcement petition, the petition to an order, and disobedience of the order to contempt.

The criminal offense for deliberate destruction runs alongside this rather than replacing it, and reaches conduct occurring before any order exists.