Lost Parenting Time Over a False Accusation? Why Colorado Just Scrapped a Proposed Fix

What This Bill Actually Does

Let's talk about the messy, highly emotional intersection of family court and child welfare investigations. Under current Colorado law, if a parent faces allegations of abuse or neglect during a domestic relations case, courts will typically hit the brakes, heavily restricting or entirely suspending their parenting time while the state investigates. That is an absolutely necessary safeguard to protect kids in our state. However, it creates a massive, painful blind spot: if the investigation ultimately turns up absolutely nothing, the accused parent simply loses those weeks or months of time with their child. Right now, there is no automatic right to get that exact time back.

Senate Bill 26-073, officially titled the "Order of Additional Parenting Time" bill, aimed to close that gap by introducing a statutory right to make-up parenting time. If a parent was wrongfully denied time because of an investigation by a law enforcement agency, child welfare agency, or county department of human services—and that investigation did not result in a substantial finding of abuse or neglect—the court would have been required to intervene. Specifically, the judge shall order additional parenting time to compensate the parent, unless the other party could demonstrate "good cause" as to why they shouldn't.

The bill was highly specific about how this compensation would play out in the real world. The make-up time had to mirror the exact type and duration of what was lost. If you missed Thanksgiving, a spring break, and three regular weekends, you would be entitled to equivalent holiday, vacation, and weekend time. Parents would have a generous two-year window to exercise this make-up time, and the wrongfully accused parent would actually get to select the dates, provided they fit within the court's limitations. Importantly, the bill explicitly stated that this wouldn't allow disgruntled parents to sue the Department of Human Services or the police for the disruption; it was strictly about rebalancing the scales in family court.

What It Means for You

For any Colorado parent navigating a contentious divorce or high-conflict custody dispute, this bill touched on a very real, very terrifying fear: the weaponization of the child welfare system to gain leverage. Because this bill was just Postponed Indefinitely (Capitol-speak for "killed in committee"), your rights as a parent remain exactly as they were before the session started. If you lose precious parenting time during an investigation that ultimately clears your name, getting that time back is still entirely at the discretion of your specific family court judge, rather than a guaranteed statutory right.

This means the financial and emotional burden remains heavily on you and your legal team. If you find yourself wrongfully denied time due to an unfounded report, you will still need to file motions, pay your attorney's hourly rate, and argue your case for compensatory time without the backing of a strict state mandate. The proposed two-year window to cash in missed weekends and holidays is officially off the table, so you'll have to negotiate any make-up time through standard mediation or bruising court hearings. The lack of a firm rule means outcomes will continue to vary wildly depending on which county you live in and which judge is sitting on the bench.

Here are your practical takeaways now that this bill is dead:

• Document everything meticulously: If you are currently facing a restricted parenting time order, keep an exact log of how many days, overnights, and specific holidays you are missing. You will need hard data to petition the court later.
• Talk to your family law attorney: Ask your lawyer about their specific track record and strategy for requesting compensatory time under current Colorado statutes, since this new legislative mandate won't be coming to your rescue.
• Focus on the long game: Without an automatic "make-up" rule, you need to ensure your permanent parenting plan has robust mediation clauses to handle disputes without immediately resorting to expensive emergency court motions.

What It Means for Your Business

On its face, a family law bill doesn't scream "business impact," but this legislation carried distinct ripples for a very specific subset of Colorado professionals: family law attorneys, professional mediators, private investigators, and custody evaluators. Because the bill died in committee, the legal landscape for managing high-conflict custody cases remains unchanged. Family law practices won't have a new, streamlined statutory tool to guarantee make-up time for their falsely accused clients. This means these disputes will continue to require highly customized, deeply researched legal arguments rather than relying on a cut-and-dry mandate. For mediators, it means continuing to negotiate these emotional make-up schedules from scratch.

For employers and HR managers across all industries, the ongoing status quo means employees caught in these agonizing custody battles will likely continue to face prolonged, unpredictable court schedules. When an employee loses parenting time to an unfounded investigation and then has to fight tooth and nail to get it back, the resulting stress, legal expenses, and required time off for multiple hearings directly impact workplace productivity. A streamlined "make-up time" process might have resolved these disputes faster, but without it, expect employees in this situation to need significant flexibility.

Here is what you should do this week to adapt:

• For Family Law Practices: Brief your associates and paralegals. Update your intake and strategy protocols to ensure your team continues to prepare highly customized motions for compensatory parenting time, as you won't be able to lean on this proposed statute.
• For HR Departments: Review your Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs). Ensure you have robust mental health resources and flexible scheduling policies to adequately support staff navigating complex, drawn-out family court proceedings.
• For Supervised Visitation Centers: Continue your standard operations. Since the rules aren't changing, your scheduling and intake processes for parents transitioning out of restricted time will remain exactly the same.

Follow the Money

Because the bill was killed early in the legislative session, Colorado taxpayers won't see any financial impact—but even if it had passed, the fiscal footprint was projected to be virtually nonexistent. According to the nonpartisan Legislative Council Staff, SB26-073 required no new state appropriations and would have resulted in $0 in new state revenue or expenditures for both the 2026-27 and 2027-28 budget years.

The state anticipated only a "minimal workload increase" for trial courts and the Office of the Child's Representative (OCR). The logic here was simple: high-conflict custody cases involving abuse allegations already require multiple, exhausting hearings to resolve. Adding a request for make-up parenting time to the docket wouldn't have significantly moved the needle on how much time judges or state-appointed attorneys spend managing these cases. Ultimately, the real financial burden in these situations remains right where it has always been: squarely on the parents paying hefty private legal fees to fight these battles.

Where This Bill Stands

This legislation is officially dead for the 2026 session. Introduced on January 28, 2026, by Senator Scott Bright, the bill was assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Just two weeks later, on February 11, 2026, the committee voted to Postpone Indefinitely the measure. In the Colorado legislature, a "PI" vote is the procedural way to quietly kill a bill, effectively closing the book on it for the year.

Why did it stall so quickly? While the bill sought to address a genuine, painful grievance for falsely accused parents, mandatory "shall order" requirements in family court rarely survive intact at the Capitol. Legal stakeholders generally resist bills that strip discretion away from judges, arguing that family courts need flexibility to handle the intricate, messy details of specific families rather than applying blanket rules. Unless a similar measure is heavily retooled to offer more judicial discretion and reintroduced in a future session, the push for guaranteed make-up parenting time in Colorado is over for now.