Marsden v. Koop
North Dakota Supreme Court
789 N.W.2d 531 (2010)
- Written by Meredith Hamilton Alley, JD
Facts
Serena Marsden (plaintiff) and Jason Koop (defendant) married and had two children who were members of the Fairford First Nations, which was a Canadian Indigenous group. The marriage deteriorated, and Marsden filed for divorce in district court. At trial, one issue was whether each parent would support the development of the children’s cultural background. Testimony established that Marsden attended more powwows than Koop, but Koop wanted the children to learn about their cultural background if they were interested. North Dakota’s custody statute required courts to consider a number of factors in applying the best-interests-of-the-child (BIOC) standard. The statute did not require courts to consider a child’s cultural background. The district court considered the statutory factors in applying the BIOC standard, and it did not consider the children’s cultural background. The court awarded primary residential responsibility to Koop with parenting time to Marsden. Marsden appealed to the North Dakota Supreme Court, arguing, among other things, that the district court should have taken the children’s cultural background into consideration.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Crothers, J.)
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