Stay home order impacting family court cases

Family court cases are being impacted by Oregon’s stay-home order.
The COVID-19 outbreak has changed most facets of people's lives around the globe.

Though employees are furloughed and events, meetings and trips are canceled or postponed, life is still happening. We still wake up every day and have to take care of our needs and obligations. For many families, that means matters in the family court system.
But the pandemic and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown's executive order requiring Oregonians to stay at home have changed the way every court in the state operates.

To stem the spread of COVID-19 and protect public health by minimizing in-person court business, Chief Justice Martha Walters put restrictions on all court operations until she orders otherwise.

If anything changes or there's a need to do so, she says she may order more restrictions or ease the ones in place.

"Our goal is to continue to provide essential services while significantly minimizing the number of judges, staff, litigants and case participants, interpreters, and members of the public who come into our courthouses and offices," Chief Justice Walters wrote in the order. "We must do our part to help slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus and to minimize any health risks to our communities, while meeting our courts’ obligations to the public."

All criminal, civil and other trials, hearings and proceedings must be pushed back until after June 1, 2020. However, there are exceptions for required "essential proceedings". Many of those proceedings can be held remote through video conference or phone calls.

Many domestic relations cases in the family law department fall under that order restricting proceedings, such as divorce cases, custody and modifications.

The order does allow courts to continue to accept filings and hold hearings on their scheduled date for protective order cases, including restraining orders, elder abuse protection orders, disabled abuse protection orders, sexual abuse protection orders and extreme risk protection orders. The order also allows motions on immediate danger orders.

Full story: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/justice-delayed-is-justice-denied-covid-19-pandemic-stay-home-order-impacting-family-law/283-022dc0e8-be3a-4218-a42e-38e64db386fe

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