Utah House adopts custody '50-50' option as one judge consideration in SB 122

The Utah House on March 5 adopted a substitute to Senate Bill 122 that adds an explicit option for judges to award equal parenting time when certain conditions are met.

Representative Lisenby, the House sponsor, said the fourth substitute clarifies the statute to give courts an additional option — not a mandate — for dividing parental time after divorce or separation. “This bill is really quite simple. It's a good bill,” Lisenby told colleagues as she urged support.

Supporters including Representative Snow and Representative Wilcox said the change preserves judicial discretion and helps courts and mediating parents by providing clear factors to evaluate whether equal time serves the child's best interest. Snow, who has worked on related parental-time legislation, said the provision is an additional tool that has been refined through stakeholder feedback and will benefit judges and families.

During floor discussions, members sought and received clarifications about the prescriptive schedule language in the substitute. Representative Judkins and Representative Perucci asked whether the statutory schedules would remove parents’ ability to craft alternative arrangements; the sponsor answered that the listed schedules are factors a judge considers only if parties fail to reach their own agreement. Representative Tusher reiterated that the measure applies only when the judge finds conditions on specified lines of the bill have been met.

The House voted to pass the substitute and returned the bill to the Senate; the transcript records the passage with 72 yes votes and 0 no votes. The bill’s authors said the substitute is patterned on prior legislation and is intended to expand options for family courts while preserving flexibility for parents and judges.

Next steps: the House-sent substitute will go back to the Senate for further consideration and final signatures before it becomes law.