Background
The Thorburns dissolved their marriage in 2020 with permanent orders designating the mother as primary residential parent and the father following a step-up parenting time schedule. In early 2021, after the child sustained multiple injuries while in the father’s care, a magistrate entered a restriction order requiring supervised parenting time in a facility setting. The restriction order required the father to comply with Department of Human Services recommendations and complete a parenting class. Once those conditions were met and the facility deemed supervision unnecessary, the order contemplated that the parties could either agree on a new step-up plan or return to court for the judge to decide. The court of appeals affirmed the restriction order in 2022.
In September 2022, the father moved to return to equal parenting time as provided in the original permanent orders, asserting the restriction order was temporary. The district court construed this as a motion to modify the restriction order. At a January 2025 hearing, the parties agreed to an unsupervised parenting schedule with specific allocations during school year and summer. The district court adopted this agreement in February 2025, finding it in the child’s best interest.
The Court’s Holding
The court of appeals affirmed the parenting time modification order. The court first held that the father did not waive his appellate arguments by agreeing to the new schedule at the hearing. The father had consistently objected to characterizing his motion as a modification request and asked the court to note his objections in its order, demonstrating no clear and unambiguous intent to relinquish his right to appeal.
More importantly, the court held that the 2021 restriction order was not temporary but rather modified and replaced the 2020 permanent orders. Although the restriction order imposed conditions, it did not provide for automatic restoration of prior parenting time once those conditions were satisfied. Instead, the parties could either agree on implementation of a new step-up plan or return to court for the judge to decide. Therefore, the father’s 2022 motion constituted a request to modify the restriction order—now the controlling order—not merely a request to lift temporary restrictions and restore original permanent orders.
The court rejected the father’s argument that the district court should have automatically granted equal parenting time upon finding no current endangerment. The court emphasized that Colorado law requires courts to consider the child’s best interests in all parenting time determinations, and no provision of the restriction order guaranteed automatic restoration. The mother had also opposed the father’s request for equal parenting time, making a best-interests analysis necessary.
Key Takeaways
- Restriction orders imposing supervised parenting time are final orders that modify permanent parenting orders, not temporary suspensions
- Restriction orders do not automatically restore prior parenting schedules once imposed conditions are satisfied; parties must either agree on a new schedule or return to court
- Courts must consider child’s best interests when determining any parenting time schedule, regardless of how a motion is framed
- The distinction between restrictions and modifications turns on whether there is a quantitative change in existing parenting time, not on whether supervision is involved
- Appellate attorney fees for vexatiousness require clear and unequivocal cases; fees may be awarded under statutory provisions for financial disparity
Why It Matters
This decision provides critical guidance on the permanence and effect of restriction orders in Colorado family law. Parents subject to supervised parenting time restrictions should understand that such orders create a new legal baseline, not a temporary holding pattern with automatic restoration rights. The decision prevents a procedural loophole whereby a parent could obtain automatic relief from restrictions simply by completing court-ordered programs, without the court reconsidering what arrangement serves the child’s best interests.
For family law practitioners, the opinion clarifies that courts will treat requests to lift restrictions as modification requests subject to the best-interests standard. It underscores the importance of precise language in restriction orders specifying the process for seeking restoration of parenting time and confirms that the child’s best interests standard applies throughout parenting proceedings. The decision also provides guidance on waiver doctrine in family appeals, establishing that a party’s courtroom agreement to a settlement does not constitute waiver of an objection to the legal characterization of the motion being decided.