Until this year, most routine cases involving minor children in Lincoln County — adoption, custody, guardianship, paternity, termination of parental rights, and so on — were handled by the Lincoln County Judge of Probate. According to Judge Tom Berry, these cases represented the majority of what the Probate Court did.

However, at the June 7 County Commissioners’ meeting, Berry said that a new state law, taking effect at the end of July, will transfer most of these cases to District Court, into a system that is already overtaxed and may not have enough judges to oversee the cases, especially in emergency situations.

“A grandparent comes in and says, ‘Our daughter is an alcoholic and our son-in-law is in jail for selling drugs and the children are at our house and safe,’” Berry said. “They want us to make it legal and give them authority to get medical treatment for their grandchildren or enroll them in school. And as of July 31, these cases will have to go before the District Court.”

That could take weeks or months, he said. Berry said that he is trying to work within the confines of the new law, but appeared before the Commissioners to give them a heads up about potential problems down the road. “We have a very good District judge,” he said, referring to the Hon. Barbara Raimondi, “but her caseload is already high. I am worried that when this law goes into effect, the wait times for these situations will become very long, and pose a legal threat to the families.”

The new law, LD 890, “An Act to Ensure a Continuing Home Court For Cases Involving Children,” was enacted because of poor outcomes in some counties, especially York County, which had a great deal of difficulty with family law cases in recent years, according to Berry. Lincoln County was not among those, but the same law is being applied to all counties. The governor is expected to appoint an additional District Court judge for the entire state, but Berry said that the funding mechanism for that extra judge is not likely to survive after the first year — it is money withdrawn from the Department of Health and Human Services, whose budget is chronically running in the red — and transferred to the Judiciary Department.

“And I doubt that this judge is going to be a circuit rider,” Berry said, “which means that Raimondi will hear the majority of these cases.”

But Mary Ann Lynch, communications counsel to the Judiciary Department, said that the Probate Court will continue to handle most routine cases. “The only cases that will go to District Court are those in which a child already is involved with District Court in some way,” she said. For instance, if a child is the subject of a protective custody order, any additional court cases will be heard in District Court. “It’s to keep families from having to run back and forth between District Court and the local Probate Court,” she said.

Lynch said that there are about a thousand cases, statewide, in which the Probate Court will have to refer pending actions, such as a guardianship or termination of parental rights, to the District Court. Most cases will continue to be processed through the Probate Court, she said.