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

Under RURESA, multiple support orders affecting the same parties were commonplace.
UIFSA created a structure designed to provide for only one support order at a time. The new
one-order regime is facilitated and combined with a broad assertion of personal jurisdiction
under this long-arm provision. The frequency of a two-state procedure involving the
participation of tribunals in both states has been substantially reduced by the introduction of this
long-arm statute.
Subsections (1) through (8) are derived from a variety of sources, including the Uniform
Parentage Act (1973) § 8, Texas Family Code § 102.011, and New York Family Court Act §
154.
Subsection (1) codifies the holding of Burnham v. Superior Court, 495 U.S. 604 (1990),
which reaffirms the constitutional validity of asserting personal jurisdiction based on personal
service within a state.
Subsection (2) expresses the principle that a nonresident party concedes personal
jurisdiction by seeking affirmative relief or by submitting to the jurisdiction by answering or
entering an appearance. However, the power to assert jurisdiction over an issue involving child
support under the act does not necessarily extend the tribunal’s jurisdiction to other matters. As
noted above, family law is rife with instances of bifurcated jurisdiction. For example, a tribunal
may have jurisdiction to establish a child-support order based on personal jurisdiction over the
obligor under Section 201, but lack jurisdiction over child custody, which is a matter of status
adjudication usually based on the home state of the child.
Subsections (3) through (6) identify specific fact situations justifying the assertion of
long-arm jurisdiction over a nonresident. Each provides an appropriate affiliating nexus for such
an assertion, when judged on a case-by-case basis with an eye on procedural and substantive due
process. Further, each subsection does contain a possibility that an overly literal construction of
the terms of the statute will overreach due process. For example, subsection (3) provides that
long-arm jurisdiction to establish a support order may be asserted if “the individual resided with
the child in this state.” The typical scenario contemplated by the statute is that the parties lived as
a family unit in the forum state, separated, and one of the parents subsequently moved to another
state while the other parent and the child continued to reside in the forum. No time frame is
stated for filing a proceeding; this is based on the fact that the absent parent has a support
obligation that extends for at least the minority of the child (and longer in some states).
On the other hand, suppose that the two parents and their child lived in State A for many
years and then decided to move the family to State B to seek better employment opportunities.
Those opportunities did not materialize and, after several weeks or a few months of frustration
with the situation, one of the parents returned with the child to State A. Under these facts, a
tribunal of State A may conclude it has long-arm jurisdiction to establish the support obligation
of the absent parent. But, suppose that the family’s sojourn in State B lasted for many years, and
then one parent unilaterally decides to return to State A. It is reasonable to expect that a tribunal
will conclude that assertion of personal jurisdiction over the absent parent immediately after the
return based on subsection (3) would offend due process. Note the provisions of UIFSA are
available to the returning parent to establish child support in State B, and that state will have
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