A Michigan Trial Court Properly Declined to Enforce a California Custody Determination Due to Lack of Jurisdiction
Opinion Published: July 20, 2023 (Cameron, PJ, Murray and Gadola, JJ.)
Ogemaw County Circuit Court
Holding: The trial court properly declined to enforce a California custody determination because the California court did not have subject matter jurisdiction. Under the Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA), a state has jurisdiction to make an initial custody determination when that state is the child’s home state. In this case, Michigan, not California, was the child’s home state, so California did not have jurisdiction to make the initial custody determination. Because the California judgment was entered when the court did not have jurisdiction, the judgment is not entitled to full faith and credit in Michigan.
Facts: The parties met and married in California and had two children in California during the marriage. In early 2020, the parties separated, and mother moved with the children to Michigan to live closer to her family. After mother moved, father’s contact with the children was very limited because mother claimed contact with father was traumatizing for the children.
Father, who remained in California, filed an ex parte request for temporary emergency custody and parenting time in the Superior Circuit Court of California, County of Contra Costa, on November 13, 2020. He attached a UCCJEA declaration to his request stating that the children moved to Michigan in April 2020. On March 22, 2021, the California court found that it had jurisdiction to make child custody decisions and entered an order directing the parties to share joint legal custody and to move the children back to California. The children then moved back from Michigan to California.
On August 17, 2021, mother filed her own ex parte motion in Michigan, seeking sole physical and legal custody of the children. Mother argued in her motion that the California court’s order was unenforceable because California did not have subject matter jurisdiction over the custody dispute. The trial court in Michigan determined that it has home-state jurisdiction under the UCCJEA and granted mother’s request. Mother picked up the children in California and again moved them to Michigan.
On December 22, 2021, the California court finalized its original custody decision, and father attempted to register the judgment in Michigan. The trial court denied father’s attempt to register the judgment because California lacked jurisdiction. Father appealed.
Key Appellate Rulings:
The trial court properly exercised jurisdiction under the UCCJEA because Michigan has home state jurisdiction.
Michigan and California have both enacted the UCCJEA, and the UCCJEA is the exclusive basis for determining whether a court can make an initial custody determination. Under the UCCJEA, a state’s court may make an initial custody determination if that state is the home state of the child on the date of the commencement of the proceeding. The UCCJEA defines “home state” as “the state in which a child lived with a parent or a person acting as a parent for at least six consecutive months immediately before the commencement of a child custody proceeding.” MCL 722.1102(g); Cal Fam Code § 3402(g).
Here, father’s UCCJEA affidavit clearly established that the children moved from California in April 2020, and father did not file his custody request until November 2020 - one month past the six-month home state definition. Therefore, California was not the children’s home state, and California did not have jurisdiction to make an initial custody determination.
The trial court was not obligated to enforce the California custody judgment because the Full Faith and Credit Clause does not apply when the judgment was entered by a court without subject matter jurisdiction.
The Full Faith and Credit Clause requires that a judgment entered in another state is presumptively valid and given the same effect in every other state. However, the UCCJEA states that a state must recognize and enforce a custody determination from another state when the determination “exercised jurisdiction that was in substantial conformity with” the UCCJEA. Likewise, a federal “close cousin” of the UCCJEA, the Parental Kidnapping Protection Act, conditions enforcement of custody determinations on whether the sister-state properly exercised jurisdiction. Because the California court lacked subject matter jurisdiction, the judgment was not entered in substantial conformity with the UCCJEA. Therefore, the trial court properly declined to enforce the California custody determination.
Thus, when faced with a jurisdictional challenge in a UCCJEA case, courts should first determine if the sister-state had subject matter jurisdiction to make the initial custody determination. If the sister-state did have subject matter jurisdiction, then Michigan must enforce the custody determination under the Full Faith and Credit Clause in accordance with the UCCJEA; if the sister-state did not have jurisdiction, the custody determination is invalid and not entitled to full faith and credit.
