Legal & Physical Child Custody

Legal Custody

Parents will fight tooth and nail about what kind of custody each of them should have. They are extremely concerned about the term custody. There are many parenting labels including visitation, joint custody, sole custody, physical custody and legal custody. Our state statute doesn’t help much. In fact, it probably creates more confusion. NC Gen. Stat. §50-13.1(a) states: Unless a contrary intent is clear, the word “custody” shall be deemed to include custody or visitation or both.” However, our case law and the NC Child Support Guidelines do give us more details about those labels. I’ve tried to avoid legalese, but some of it is inevitable.

Our Changing Values 

Unlike some states, our state law doesn’t start by assuming that any particular type of custody will exist. But a few years ago, it came just shy of it when the state policy was written to promote “child-centered parenting . . . and encourage . . . court practices that reflect the active and ongoing participation of both parents in the child’s life and contact with both parents when such is in the child’s best interest…” NC Gen. Stat. §50-13.01. This was significant because it wasn’t too many years ago that courts almost automatically gave moms custody of young children. The now debunked law of traditional custody, called the Tender Years Doctrine, assumed young children of tender years should be with their mothers if at all possible. Now, if either parent requests joint custody, the court is legally obligated to consider it. NC Gen. Stat. §50-13.2(a).

Legal Custody (Parenting Decisions)

Legal custody is decision-making custody, the right to make significant long-term decisions that impact a child’s life and welfare, such as a child’s education, health, medical care, discipline, and religious training, to name a few. Contrast that with physical custody, the day-to-day decision-making such as what bed-time is best or how long a child may spend on social media on a school night. There are three types of legal custody.

Joint Legal Custody

The trend these days is to award joint legal custody to parents, meaning that both parents equally share the decision-making. Ironically, when parents share joint custody, neither parent can veto the other, so neither parent really has any more rights to make a decision than the other. But, the system of checks and balances provides some incentive for decent behavior. If one parent acts badly or makes poor decisions, he or she may have to account for it on the witness stand at some future date if the other parent files a motion for the court to intervene and have a judge decide what must be done about the disagreement. 

Sole Legal Custody

On occasion, a judge will award sole legal custody to one parent. If the dispute is about which school a child should attend, for example, the parent with sole legal custody makes the final decision. However, judges usually expect the parent with sole legal custody to discuss the controversy with the other parent. But if they still can’t agree, he or she makes the decision. Until a child reaches the age of 18, either parent has the right to file motions asking the court to address any serious dispute, which usually is done by a motion to modify the custody order.

“Split” Joint Legal Custody

Although it is usually done in unique cases, the court does have the authority to award split joint legal custody. Although both parents can share important decisions, split custody reduces one parent’s decision-making about one specific subject. For example, a parent with joint legal custody might be excluded from decisions about whether counseling is appropriate, and if so, who will provide counseling services. In that event, one party would have primary legal custody, and the other would have secondary legal custody.  

Physical Custody

Our state deems physical custody to mean “the physical care and supervision of a child.” NC Gen. Stat. §50A-102(14). The NC Child Support Guidelines identify primary physical custody as the custody a parent has when he or she spends 243 overnight visits per year with that child. The other parent has secondary physical custody because he or she has 122 or fewer overnights. In that case, child support is the same amount no matter what the custody schedule is. But if a parent has 123 or more overnight visits per year, a different calculation is used. Depending on the exact number of overnights per year, the child support obligation changes on a per-day basis.

Physical or Legal Custody?

The Guidelines are careful to note that primary physical custody is determined without regard to whether a parent has primary, shared, or joint legal custody (decision-making custody), which is the right to make significant long-term decisions, such as a child’s religious training or the school a child will attend. Contrast that with physical custody, which involves the day-to-day decision-making such as what bed-time is best or how much time a child may spend using social media on a school night.

Visitation With a Child

Our state fails to clearly define visitation, stating that: Unless a contrary intent is clear, the word custody shall be deemed to include custody or visitation or both. The Court of Appeals wrote that “Visitation privileges are but a lesser degree of custody. Thus . . . the word custody . . . was intended to encompass visitation rights as well as general custody.” NC Gen. Stat. § 50-13.2(b1). But the statute specifies who cannot have visitation. If a person conceived a child by acts of various sexual assault laws, he is not entitled to visitation rights. On the other hand, grandparents may file a case visitation, not custody of any sort. However, they may seek visitation only if there is an on-going custody battle already pending in court. This avoids the significant stress and cost of litigation which could otherwise be inflicted upon the parents by a third party.

What About Technology?

Judges in North Carolina may award “electronic communication” with a parent. To allow a fluid and meaning as technology changes, the law envisions “contact, other than face-to-face contact, facilitated by electronic means, such as by telephone, electronic mail, instant messaging, video teleconferencing, wired or wireless technologies by Internet, or other medium of communication.” However, the statute is quick to add that these communications “may be used to supplement visitation . . . but . . . may not be used as a replacement or substitution for custody or visitation.”

See Diehl v. Diehl, 630 S.E.2d 25 (2006) and Hall v. Hall, 188 N.C. App. 527 (2008). Laws change. This article is current as of 2018.©