101. INTRODUCTION / PREFACE.

All practice and procedure before the Circuit Judge or the Domestic Relations Commissioner shall be subject to these local rules, the Kentucky Civil Rules of Procedure (CR), the Family Court Rules of Procedure and Practice (FCRPP), the Kentucky Criminal Rules of Procedure (RCr) and all other laws and statutes of the Commonwealth of Kentucky enacted by the General Assembly, and Rules enacted by this Court and the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Kentucky.

102. EFFECTIVE DATE.

These rules are adopted pursuant to the authority granted by Rule 1.040(3) of the Rules of the Supreme Court. They shall be effective with full force and effect to all actions filed or pending after their promulgation by order of the Chief Judge of the Whitley and McCreary Circuit Courts and certification and approval of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Kentucky.

103. CITATION OF RULES

These rules apply to the practice of law in the 34th Judicial Circuit, which consists of Whitley and McCreary Counties, and may be cited as “Rules of the 34th Judicial Circuit” or “R34JC.”

104. ASSIGNMENT OF CIVIL CASES

104.1 When a civil action is filed, the Clerk shall enter the appropriate information into the computer system and request the computer to assign the case to a Division. Thereafter, all process, pleadings, motions, orders, and papers filed in the case shall set forth the Division on which the case has been assigned. Before assigning the case to a particular Division, the Clerk of the court shall assign a file number to the action.

104.2 For the purpose of assignment, civil cases include contract, domestic relations, personal injury, products liability, property, District Court Appeals, administrative and state board appeals, cases transferred from circuits outside of the 34th Judicial Circuit, and other cases.

105. ORGANIZATION OF THE WHITLEY AND MCCREARY CIRCUIT COURTS

105.1 The Whitley and McCreary Circuit Courts shall be composed of a Civil Branch and a Criminal Branch. The Criminal Branch shall have exclusive jurisdiction of all criminal cases, and the Civil Branch shall have jurisdiction of all other cases within the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court.

105.2 The Whitley and McCreary Circuit Courts are courts of continuous session, and consist of Division I and Division II.

105.3 The Judge of each Division shall hear cases in both the Civil Branch and the Criminal Branch of the Court.

105.4 Each Judge of a Division may preside and hear and determine any case or question in the other Division when the Judge of that Division is sick, absent from the county, or is not available.

105.5 After each case has been assigned to a Division, the Judge thereof may, for any reason, transfer it to the other Division. An order of transfer will be entered and, upon such transfer being made, the Clerk will make a proper endorsement upon the Docket and the record.

105.6 When two or more cases have been filed that may, as a matter of right or in the discretion of the Court, be consolidated and such actions are pending in different divisions of the Court, any party to any of the actions, or the Court without motion, may have any of the actions transferred to that Division of the Court in which the first of the cases was filed. If it is determined that consolidation is not proper, the Judge of that division may transfer the case back to the original division.