Medical Decisions When Idaho Parents Share Joint Legal Custody

Attorney Answer

If your order gives you joint legal custody, your child's mother is not entitled to make a major medical decision alone — but the fix is a filing in your custody case, not another conversation with the doctor.

Idaho Code § 32-717B defines joint legal custody as "a judicial determination that the parents or parties are required to share the decision-making rights, responsibilities and authority relating to the health, education and general welfare of a child." Health decisions are named in the definition. The statute also establishes a presumption that joint custody is in a child's best interests absent a preponderance of the evidence to the contrary. What § 32-717B does not do — and this is the honest limit of it — is tell anyone what happens when two joint legal custodians disagree. It defines the shared authority; it does not appoint a tiebreaker.

That gap is why the doctor's position is not surprising. Physicians generally proceed on the consent of the parent in front of them, and a treating provider is not going to referee a custody dispute. The provider's practice is not the same thing as your legal rights, and pressing the doctor is unlikely to change anything.

If you want the decision-making authority over medical care allocated differently, that has to be sought in the custody case itself, through a properly filed and pleaded request with an evidentiary hearing — not by letter, phone call, or informal motion. A court deciding any custody or decision-making question applies the best-interest factors in Idaho Code § 32-717, which include the wishes of the parents, the wishes of the child, the child's interaction and interrelationship with parents and siblings, the child's adjustment to home, school, and community, the character and circumstances of all involved, the need to promote continuity and stability, and domestic violence.

A plain word about your prospects. Courts are not equipped to review individual prescriptions, and joint legal custody is presumed to be in a child's best interests. An objection framed as "I do not consent" carries little weight standing alone. An objection supported by a medical basis — a second opinion, a documented reaction, a specific risk — is a different filing entirely.

What you can do

1. Read your custody order and find the exact language on legal custody and medical decisions. Some orders assign medical decision-making to one parent, some require joint agreement, some are silent. Everything you do next depends on which one you have. 2. Put your objection in writing to the prescribing provider and ask that it be placed in your son's chart. Ask, in the same letter, what the practice's policy is on consent where parents share legal custody. Whatever happens, this creates the record. 3. Request your son's medical records directly. As a parent with legal custody you are generally entitled to them, and you cannot evaluate a medication you have not seen the file on. 4. Send your objection to the mother in writing as well, stating your specific concern rather than a general refusal. Courts read these exchanges later, and tone matters. 5. Get a second opinion from another physician about the medication. This is the step that converts your position from a disagreement into evidence. 6. File in your existing custody case. If the order already requires joint agreement, the request is to enforce it. If you want decision-making reallocated, file a properly pleaded modification and be ready for an evidentiary hearing — a court applying § 32-717 will want facts, not positions. 7. If the medication involves an urgent safety risk, say so in your filing and ask for expedited consideration rather than waiting for the ordinary hearing schedule.