[6] In January 2018, the trial court issued its order. Believing that Mother would be relocating to New Haven regardless of the court's decision, the court (1) denied Mother's request to relocate W.H., (2) awarded primary physical custody to Father, (3) awarded sole legal custody to Father, (4) modified child support, and (5) found Mother in contempt of the previous legal-custody order and ordered her to pay some of Father's attorney's fees.
[7] Mother then filed a motion to correct error. She did not challenge the denial of her request to relocate W.H. to New Haven, but she argued that the rest of the rulings were incorrect. Relevant to this appeal, Mother asserted that the parties did not ask the trial court to modify legal custody and that the court therefore erred by doing so. The trial court granted Mother's motion in part, including setting aside the finding of contempt, but it left in place the modification of legal custody. The court concluded that "a change of custody was requested and plead by both parties." Appellant's App. Vol. III p. 30.
[8] Mother now appeals.
Discussion and Decision
[9] Mother does not appeal the trial court's rulings regarding relocation, physical custody, or child support. She challenges only the trial court's modification of legal custody. Specifically, she renews her argument that Father never asked the trial court to award him sole legal custody, that the issue of legal custody was not otherwise placed at issue, and that the trial court therefore erred by modifying legal custody. As we made clear in Bailey v. Bailey , "Longstanding Indiana law has prohibited trial courts from sua sponte ordering a change of custody." 7 N.E.3d 340, 344 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014). The issue is one of notice:
[W]hen such an important issue as the custody of children is involved, a modification generally can be ordered only after a party has filed a petition requesting such a modification, the other party has notice of the filing, and a proper evidentiary hearing is held at which both parties may be heard and the trial court fully apprised of all necessary information regarding change of circumstances and a child's best interests before deciding whether a modification should be ordered.
[10] For his part, Father does not dispute that the modification of custody is improper if the issue is not raised by the parties, nor does he dispute that he never expressly asked the trial court, in either his filings with the court or at the hearing, to modify legal custody. Rather, he argues that, pursuant to Indiana's relocation statutes, Ind. Code ch. 31-17-2.2, legal custody was "automatically at issue" once he requested a hearing regarding Mother's notice of intent to relocate. Appellee's Br. p. 6. Mother disagrees with Father's reading of the relocation statutes. Statutory construction is a matter of law that we review de novo. Edmonds v. State , 100 N.E.3d 258, 261 (Ind. 2018).
[11] Indiana Code section 31-17-2.2-1(a) provides that a "relocating individual"-a person who has or is seeking custody of a child or parenting time with a child and who intends to move their principal residence, Ind. Code § 31-9-2-107.5 -"must file a notice of the intent to move[.]" Here, *1042Mother filed such a notice, and Father responded with an objection in which he requested that the court set a hearing. In support of his argument that legal custody was at issue as soon as he requested a hearing, Father cites Indiana Code section 31-17-2.2-1(b), which provides, in part, "Upon motion of a party, the court shall set the matter for a hearing to review and modify, if appropriate, a custody order, parenting time order, grandparent visitation order, or child support order." According to Father, this provision means that both physical and legal custody are at issue and subject to modification any time a parent requests a hearing regarding the other parent's notice of intent to relocate, regardless of the reason for, or the content of, the request for a hearing. Appellee's Br. p. 9 ("[T]he mere filing of a request for hearing after the initiating party files a notice of intent to relocate places custody at issue, physical and/or legal custody.").
[12] We think Father misreads the opening phrase "Upon motion of a party[.]" Father apparently believes that the "motion" referred to in that phrase is a motion or request for a hearing, so that "the court shall set the matter for a hearing to review and modify, if appropriate, a custody order" any time a parent asks for a hearing on another parent's notice of intent to relocate. See id. at 11 (Father arguing that "the statute specifically says that after a party files a motion for hearing that a modification of custody is a potential consequence or result"). But the statute does not contemplate a generic "motion" or "request" for a hearing regarding a proposed relocation. As our Supreme Court has explained, what Section 31-17-2.2-1(b) contemplates, and the "motion" to which it refers, is a motion to modify an existing custody order (or parenting time order, or grandparent visitation order, or child support order). See Baxendale v. Raich , 878 N.E.2d 1252, 1256 n.5 (Ind. 2008).1 So, for example, if a parent files a motion to modify the existing physical-custody order, then "the court shall set the matter for a hearing to review and modify, if appropriate, [the physical-custody order.]" If a parent files a motion to modify the existing legal-custody order, then "the court shall set the matter for a hearing to review and modify, if appropriate, [the legal-custody order.]" If, on the other hand, a parent files only a motion to modify the existing child-support order, then "the court shall set the matter for a hearing to review and modify, if appropriate, [the child-support order]" without concerning itself with physical or legal custody. In short, the requests of the parties frame the issues for the hearing, which may or may not include the issue of legal custody.
[13] To be sure, physical custody and/or parenting time will be at issue virtually any time a parent is looking to move a significant distance. But the same is not necessarily true of legal custody. Physical distance does not prevent parents, especially given today's technology, from communicating effectively about education, health care, religion, and other aspects of a child's upbringing. And for this reason a parent who wants a change in legal custody must ask for one. If Father had done so in this case, it is entirely possible that Mother would have presented significant additional evidence relevant to the specific issue of legal custody.
[14] Instead, after Mother filed her notice of intent to relocate, Father filed a *1043"Verified Objection to Petitioner's Notice of Intent to Relocate and Petition to Modify Child Support." In that filing, Father asked the trial court to (1) modify child support, (2) prohibit Mother from relocating the child while the matter was pending, (3) deny Mother's proposed relocation, (4) award him "physical custody" "[s]hould Mother decide to move to Ft. Wayne," and (5) "set this matter for hearing[.]" Appellant's App. Vol. II pp. 43-44. Father specifically requested a change in "physical custody," thereby putting Mother on notice that physical custody would be at issue at the hearing. If he also wanted a change in legal custody, he should have said so, either in his filing or at the subsequent hearing. He did not. The term "legal custody" was used at the hearing, but only in the context of Father's request to have Mother found in contempt for allegedly violating the existing legal-custody order. And while evidence was presented that would have been relevant if legal custody had been placed at issue (e.g., evidence of the parties' communication), that evidence was separately relevant to the main issue before the court: whether to allow Mother to move W.H. to New Haven. As such, it cannot be said that the issue of legal custody was tried by consent pursuant to Indiana Trial Rule 15(B), see Bailey , 7 N.E.3d at 344, and Father makes no such argument on appeal. For these reasons, and because Indiana Code section 31-17-2.2-1 does not place legal custody at issue any time there is a hearing regarding a proposed relocation, legal custody was not at issue at the hearing, and the trial court erred by ordering the modification.
[15] Reversed.
Mathias, J., concurs.
Crone, J., dissents with separate opinion.