In re Marriage of Hauk

Summary

The Washington Supreme Court, en banc, held that when determining whether the Child Relocation Act's rebuttable presumption in favor of relocation applies, courts must calculate residential time under a phased-in parenting plan at the phase in effect when the relocating parent serves notice of intent to relocate, not by counting time designated in future phases. Reading the present-tense language of RCW 26.09.525 together with the Act's purpose of superseding the status quo approach of In re Marriage of Pape, the court concluded the statute focuses on the family's current circumstances, and it declined to create a separate measurement rule for conditional phased plans. Because the record lacks the date of service and any finding on whether the father met the 45 percent threshold under a current-phase calculation, the court reversed the Court of Appeals and remanded for factual findings and, if the presumption applies, a new best-interest hearing. Justice Whitener, dissenting, would have measured residential time over the entire parenting plan and would have affirmed.