Montana Title 40. Family Law § 40-6-501. Purpose--legislative intent--parental rights--definitions

(1) The legislature recognizes that the rights of parents to the custody and control of a child are based upon liberties secured by the United States and Montana constitutions and that a parent's rights to that custody and control of a child are therefore normally supreme to the interests of other persons. The legislature also recognizes a growing phenomenon in which absent or otherwise unavailable parents have temporarily surrendered the custody and care of their children to a grandparent or other relative for lengthy periods of time. Regardless of the purpose of the absence, a child willfully surrendered to a relative for an extended time period still has the same needs as a child in the care of its parents. In this situation, a caretaker relative assumes responsibilities for the child but has no legal right of control over the child, a situation that interferes in the caretaker relative's ability to perform routine functions of child rearing, including tending to the medical needs of the child. It is therefore the purpose of the legislature in these instances to protect the rights of a child granted by Article II, section 15, of the Montana constitution by granting a caretaker relative limited authority for a child left in the relative's care.

(2) It is the intent of the legislature that a caretaker relative given the responsibility of caring for a child with little or no warning and without any other provision having been made for the child's care, such as the appointment of a guardian or the provision of a power of attorney, be granted authority to consent to medical care for the child without superseding any parental rights regarding the child.

(3) Section 40-6-502 and this section are not intended to affect the rights and responsibilities of a parent, legal guardian, or other custodian regarding the child, do not grant legal custody of the child to the caretaker relative, and do not grant authority to the caretaker relative to consent to the marriage or adoption of the child or to receive notice of a medical procedure, including abortion, not consented to by the relative, if notice is required by law, for the child except as expressly provided in this section.

(4) For the purposes of 40-6-502 and this section, the following definitions apply: