2008 Amendments to the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act ...

There are some instances in which the text of UIFSA (2008) and the Convention differ in
a manner that cannot be reconciled by fiat. On these occasions it is necessary to accommodate
the Convention language to state law in order to avoid conflict between the Convention and the
uniform state law. A choice had to be made; either substantially amend the text of UIFSA
(2001), or create an independent set of rules to accommodate the differences between UIFSA
and the Convention. The latter was the preferred decision. An all-new Article 7 constitutes a
stand-alone portion of the act designed to direct a “tribunal of this state” on limited special
practices and handling deemed to be necessary for establishing or enforcing a Convention
support order. This decision was based on the conclusion that a limited number of specialized
rules for Convention orders would result in a simpler, smoother transition than attempting to
integrate new rules into the millions of existing child-support orders.
UIFSA (2008) also may supply answers to some of the questions that the Convention
leaves unresolved. This is particularly apt with regard to modification of existing orders when
parties have moved from the issuing state or foreign country, or other factual circumstances have
changed significantly. Regarding modification of orders, the Convention has only limited
application, while UIFSA makes modification the subject of significant statutory effect. See §§
609–16.
In sum, UIFSA (2008) constitutes a limited, rather than comprehensive, revision of the
act. It is designed to integrate the Convention into state law, and not to amend UIFSA (2001) in
any significant manner. The drafting principles are relatively simple:
(1) integrate the requirements of the Convention into the current text of UIFSA
articles 1 through 6 by adding “or a foreign country” when the desired actions and goals
of both acts are congruent;
(2) adapt the language of the Convention to the current text of UIFSA articles 1
through 6 in order to make that language more comprehensible to the American bench
and bar;
(3) draft a stand-alone article in UIFSA to direct a “tribunal of this state” on do’s
and don’ts unique to the Convention support orders containing issues only applicable
under the Convention; and,
(4) omit the Convention text that need not be included in state law because it
speaks only to “Contracting States,” i.e., the United States and the other Convention
countries.
Finally, the function of the following comments to the act is not to serve as an annotated
version of UIFSA (2008). Other than key constitutional cases, most of the citations found in
previous comments to earlier iterations of the act have been omitted.
60