Is Coercive Control Recognized in Utah?
Yes, as of 2026. House Bill 303, “Family Court Amendments,” was signed by the governor on March 23, 2026. It defines “coercive control” for the first time at Utah Code § 81-9-101(2) and adds it as a factor a court may weigh when deciding child custody and parent-time. Here's what the statute actually says, and a real wrinkle in when different parts of it took effect.
What H.B. 303 actually is
H.B. 303 was sponsored by Rep. Paul A. Cutler in the House and Sen. Michael K. McKell in the Senate, and passed during Utah's 2026 General Session. It amends Utah Code §§ 81-1-203, 81-9-101, 81-9-104, 81-9-204, and 81-9-206, and enacts a new Part 5 (§§ 81-9-501 through 81-9-504) creating a licensing and roster system for custody evaluators. Most of the bill is about that evaluator system and an attorney-fees provision. The part relevant here is narrower: a new statutory definition of coercive control, and its addition to the two lists of factors Utah courts may weigh when deciding custody and parent-time.
The definition of coercive control
§ 81-9-101(2)(a) defines “coercive control” as “an individual's pattern of behavior that, intentionally or in effect, unreasonably interferes with another individual's ability to make or act on independent decisions.” Subsection (b) says it “includes a pattern of”: isolating someone from friends, relatives, or sources of support; depriving them of basic necessities; controlling, regulating, or excessively monitoring their movements, communications, daily behavior, or access to services; controlling, regulating, excessively monitoring, depriving, or limiting their finances or economic resources; threatening to harm or kill them, a relative, or a household animal; threatening self-harm if they don't comply with demands; threatening to publish information to harass or intimidate them; damaging property or household goods; or compelling them by force, threat of force, or intimidation to engage in conduct they have a right to abstain from, or abstain from conduct they have a right to engage in. Subsection (c) carves out “reasonable and appropriate parental conduct undertaken in the care of a minor child.” The chapter's separate definition of “abuse,” at § 81-9-101(1), is unchanged by this bill and still means the same thing as “abuse” under Section 80-1-102, Utah's general child abuse and neglect code — coercive control is a distinct, newly defined term sitting alongside it, not a redefinition of abuse itself.
The custody connection — a discretionary factor, listed first
Utah's custody-factors statute, § 81-9-204, actually has two tiers. Under § 81-9-204(3), a court shall consider — for each parent, and “in accordance with Section 81-9-104” — evidence of domestic violence, physical abuse, or sexual abuse involving the child, a parent, or a household member. That mandatory tier doesn't mention coercive control by name. Coercive control instead appears under § 81-9-204(4), a separate, discretionary list the court “may consider, among other factors the court finds relevant.” § 81-9-204(4)(a) lists “evidence of coercive control” as the very first item, ahead of psychological maltreatment, parenting capacity, and the rest of that subsection's factors. § 81-9-206 — the separate statute governing the parent-time schedule itself — mirrors this exact structure: a mandatory § 81-9-206(3) tier covering domestic violence and abuse, and a discretionary § 81-9-206(4) tier that opens, again, with “evidence of coercive control” at (4)(a). This is a direct, explicit custody-factor amendment, not an indirect one reached only through a protective-order cross-reference — but it's worth being precise that Utah placed it in the “may consider” tier rather than the mandatory one.
Expert evidence under § 81-9-104 — tied to the mandatory factor, not explicitly to coercive control
H.B. 303 also amended § 81-9-104, the chapter's expert-evidence section. Where a parent is alleged to have committed domestic violence or abuse, § 81-9-104(2)(a) says a court may admit expert evidence about the allegation only from a professional with “demonstrated expertise and adequate experience in working with victims of domestic violence or abuse… that is not solely of a forensic nature.” That's a real professional-qualification gate, but reading the statute closely, the cross-reference to § 81-9-104 sits in § 81-9-204(3)(a) and § 81-9-206(3)(a) — the mandatory domestic-violence-and-abuse factor — not in the discretionary § 81-9-204(4)(a) or § 81-9-206(4)(a) coercive-control factor. Utah didn't write an explicit textual link tying the expert-qualification requirement to coercive-control testimony specifically, the way Arizona's Alec and Lydia Act built a rehabilitation-certificate requirement directly into its coercive-control presumption. Whether a court would apply § 81-9-104's expert standard to coercive-control testimony anyway, as a matter of practice, is a real question — just not one the statute's text answers directly.
A real wrinkle: this part of the bill took effect earlier than the rest
Section 10 of the enrolled bill sets two different effective dates. Under Section 10(1), most of H.B. 303 — including the new custody-evaluator licensing system in Part 5 and the amended attorney-fees section — takes effect May 6, 2026. But Section 10(2) carves out three specific sections as an exception: § 81-9-101 (the coercive-control definition), § 81-9-204 (the custody factors including coercive control), and § 81-9-206 (the parent-time factors including coercive control) instead take effect “upon governor's approval” — in other words, immediately upon signing, not on the later May 6 date that governs the rest of the bill. The enrolled bill itself marks each of those three sections “(Effective upon governor's approval)” in its own section headers. Utah's legislative bill-tracking system records the governor's signature action for H.B. 303 as occurring on March 23, 2026. That means the coercive-control definition and its custody and parent-time factors have been part of Utah law since that date — about six weeks before the rest of the bill's provisions took effect.
Why this makes text messages relevant evidence
The statute's own list of coercive-control examples — monitoring communications, controlling finances, threatening to publish private information, threats framed around compliance — describes exactly what an exported conversation preserves. And because § 81-9-204(4)(a) and § 81-9-206(4)(a) frame coercive control as evidence a court may weigh among “other factors the court finds relevant,” rather than requiring a single triggering incident, an organized, timestamped record spanning weeks or months — not a single screenshot — is the kind of evidence built to show the pattern the statute's own definition is built around.
This is general information about Utah law as currently written, not legal advice — and real caution is warranted given how new this law is. H.B. 303's coercive-control provisions had been in effect only a few months as of this writing, and how Utah courts apply the discretionary § 81-9-204(4)(a) and § 81-9-206(4)(a) factors in practice is still developing. Verity is not a law firm. Talk to a Utah family law attorney about how this applies to your situation before relying on anything here.
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