UCCJEA
In 1968, the Uniform Law Commissioners promulgated the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act (UCCJEA). By 1981, every state had adopted this Uniform Act. UCCJEA was designed to discourage interstate kidnapping of children by their non-custodial parents. The UCCJEA operates upon novel principles that 1) establish jurisdiction over a child custody case in one state; and, 2) protect the order of that state from modification in any other state, so long as the original state retains jurisdiction over the case.
UCCJEA Objectives
UCCJEA is necessary because Americans are a mobile people who seldom stay in one state. Child custody disputes between parents, which arise when there is a divorce or when unmarried biological parents want to have custody adjudicated in a court, are impacted by that very mobility. When parents and children live and have lived in one state, the courts of that state may take jurisdiction over any child custody matter without question. But it is common for a parent to live in a different state from the one in which the other parent and the child live. More than one state may have the power to adjudicate a dispute between them. If more than one state does exercise its power, the competing decisions simply confuse, rather than conclude the dispute.
Child Custody Modification
Child custody orders also have a quality that exaggerates the problem. They are modifiable orders, subject to reconsideration and change, until the children subject to them reach the age of majority. Circumstances may change between the parties governed by an order, and that may require a court to change the order – to modify it. A common scenario involves a child custody order issued in a state where the parents and the child lived together before the parents divorce each other. Then the custodial parent moves with the child to another state. If there is a need to modify the order, in which state can that modification take place? And if the second state purports to modify the order from the first state, which order is to be recognized and enforced in the first state and in every other state in the United States?
Home State Priority
In UCCJEA, there are four principles, or bases, for taking jurisdiction over a child custody dispute. These are:
- Child’s home state;
- Significant connection between state and parties to a child custody dispute;
- Emergency jurisdiction when the child is present and the child’s welfare is threatened; and,
- Presence of the child in the event there is no other state with another sound basis for taking jurisdiction.
Continuing Exclusive Jurisdiction
The UCCJEA also provides for continuing exclusive jurisdiction. If a state once takes jurisdiction over a child custody dispute, it retains jurisdiction so long as that state, by its own determination, maintains a significant connection with the disputants or until all disputants have moved away from that state. The UCCJEA also allows jurisdiction to shift if the initial ground for taking jurisdiction ceases to exist. Thus, if a state takes jurisdiction over a child custody dispute because that state is the home state of the child, and the child subsequently establishes a new home state, jurisdiction can shift to the new home state, even if one parent remains in the child’s original home state. The UCCJEA would not allow the jurisdiction to shift in this fashion, keeping it in the original home state so long as the parent remains there.
Temporary Emergency Jurisdiction
Under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act, grounds for taking emergency jurisdiction are on an equal footing with the other grounds for taking jurisdiction, including the “home state” ground. If the child is present in a state and there is evidence of abandonment or abuse to or mistreatment of the child, that state can take jurisdiction. Temporary emergency jurisdiction can ripen into continuing jurisdiction only if no other state with grounds for continuing jurisdiction can be found or, if found, declines to take jurisdiction. The child’s presence and its abandonment, mistreatment or abuse still trigger the taking of emergency jurisdiction, but threats to siblings or a parent also can trigger the taking of emergency jurisdiction. Because of the priority given to the home state of the child, the home state will most often be the state from which continuing jurisdiction is exercised.
Enforcement of Custody and Visitation Orders
The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act also adds enforcement provisions to the jurisdictional provisions. One enforcement procedure is reminiscent of procedures for enforcement under the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act for interstate spousal and child support orders and the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act, which governs the interstate enforcement of any civil judgment. The basic procedure is to register the out-of-state order. If the registration is not contested, the registered order may be enforced by any means available to enforce a domestic order. This would ordinarily mean using the contempt powers of the court to assure that the custody or visitation order is honored by the parent subject to it.
There is an expedited remedy, however, that also is available. Upon receiving a verified petition, the court orders the party with the child to submit to an immediate hearing (the next judicial day unless impossible) for enforcement. The court may rule with respect to enforcement at the hearing, although there are provisions to allow for extended hearing and standards to contest enforcement. This remedy operates much like habeas corpus, in which the body subject to the writ must be presented immediately to the court.
If there is danger to a child or if it appears that the child will be removed from the enforcing jurisdiction, a petition may also be filed for a warrant to take physical custody of the child along with a petition for an expedited proceeding. If the warrant issues, law enforcement officers will serve the warrant and obtain physical custody of the child.
As a last enforcement device, prosecutors the power to enforce custody or visitation orders, and law enforcement officers the power to locate a child under instructions from prosecutors. These powers give parents and others who are the victims (along with children) of parental kidnapping the ability to seek help from those who enforce the criminal law. The effect is to provide a complete group of effective remedies.
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For more information on child custody, click on one of the following links:
California Child Custody Modification
