Dear Friends,
It was quite a busy week in the Capitol! At points there were so many groups and guests in the building that to meet fire safety requirements, the Capitol had to be closed to new entrants multiple times (something I rarely see). If you’ve ever been to the Capitol, you’ll know it’s a bit of a rabbit warren with different buildings, floors that don’t match up, and that it can been very confusing to navigate. Often, we end up escorting or directing different groups of lost people throughout the Capitol as we head to meetings, and in hectic weeks like this – getting around the Capitol is even harder for folks. I do hope that if you visit the Capitol, you will come to my office and we can help connect you with the tour guide service so that you can experience how incredible this building, and its history, is. This week, I’m writing to update you on a few of my bills that continue to move through the legislative process.
On Tuesday, the House Consumer Protection, Technology, and Utilities Committee, reported out my bill HB 804 along a party-line vote. The bill adds Recreational Vehicles (RVs) to the Automobile Lemon Law which already covers cars and motorcycles. When Pennsylvanians buy a new vehicle, they have peace of mind knowing that their purchase is protected under the state Lemon Law. However, RVs are not given the same protections – often costing well over $100,000. Ultimately, if an RV has persistent mechanical failures, the responsibility is left to the buyer to navigate costly repairs or legal disputes on their own. If a unit is “bought back” by a dealer to avoid a lawsuit or other negative outcomes, there is no brand on the title indicating prior issues with the unit. My bill will rectify this by amending the Lemon Law to cover campers and RVs – including them in the definition of “new motor vehicle.” This has been an ongoing issue for years, with hundreds of documented complaints filed about defective RVs by consumers who have no recourse protecting them under state law when they buy a lemon. So far this year alone, 32 camper- and RV-related complaints have been reported to the Bureau of Consumer Protection. I believe this is a commonsense bill, and I was surprised it passed along party lines. Minority Chairman Carl Metzgar (R-Somerset) in opposing HB 804, argued that RVs are luxury items and that consumer protections under the Lemon Law are unwarranted. He also noted that RVs are complex, mobile homes subject to many potential issues, and argued that extending Lemon Law protections to them is inappropriate.
Since my bill would grant RV purchasers the right to repair, replacement or refund for persistent defects, and ensure proper title labeling for transparency, I hope that there is different narrative when the bill goes to the House chamber. I believe that all Pennsylvanians deserve to be afforded consumer protections and that it benefits our economy when people feel like they can safely buy such items.
In the House chamber, my bill, HB 378, passed on third consideration in the House. HB 378 aims to modernize and streamline custody factors judges use in making child custody decisions. Until 2011, custody orders in Pennsylvania were very brief. An order might read “primary custody to father and every other weekend to mother” and nothing else.
The Custody Factors, adopted in 2011, require Judges to explain every aspect of their custody decision using 16 different factors when determining child custody. While the factors gave welcome insight to litigants trying to work out courts’ decision-making in their cases, redundancies, lack of clarity, and other issues with the factors have caused some confusion. The Legislature’s Joint State Commission, Advisory Committee on Domestic Relations Law, has been requesting these changes since 2020 to achieve improvements to the law. Act 8 of 2024, also known as Kayden’s Law, explicitly included in the factors, is vital protection against child abuse and this update in no way impacts the important steps we took in passing Kayden’s Law.
The current 16-factor process can be complex, leading to confusion among families, attorneys, and even judges. As an example, one factor examines “availability of extended family,” but courts are unclear what that means and how it should be weighed. No one knows if that means knowing whether a parent is involving the child with their extended family, whether that is a positive or a negative thing, or if there should be extended family available to provide childcare.
Unclear factors such as these make custody proceedings unnecessarily costly and convoluted. This bill aims to simplify and clarify these factors, making the process more efficient. House Bill 378 mirrors the Joint State Government Commission Task Force on Domestic Relations Law’s 2022 recommendation that suggests reducing the number of factors from 16 to12, cutting down on redundancies, confusion and ultimately litigants’ and the courts’ time and resources while incorporating the changes to the factors created by Kayden’s Law. The revised 12-factor system outlined in House Bill 378 still incorporates the essence of the current 16 factors, while making the process clearer and more concise for all parties involved. It also requires that within 30 days of the receipt of a custody complaint, a petition to modify, or petition to intervene, the court shall provide litigants with a copy of the custody factors.
While waiting for and preparing for protracted custody litigation is costly to families in terms of time and expense, we often forget that those bearing the greatest cost are the children who are often stuck in the middle. Being caught between fighting parents and sometimes grandparents is harmful to children and delaying resolution in those cases because of redundancies is something we as a legislative body can help courts overcome.
I am grateful for the work of all involved in refining and improving this legislation and hope that we can soon provide relief to courts, litigants, and most importantly, the children impacted by custody litigation. I hope this bill will soon run cleanly through the Senate.