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

Temporary employment in another state may not forfeit a claim of residence in the issuing state.
Of course, residence is a fact question for the trial court, keeping in mind that the question is
residence, not domicile.
From the beginning of the implementation of the CEJ principle, questions have been raised
about why a tribunal may not modify its own order if the parties agree that it should do so even
after the parties have left the state. The move of the parties and the child from the state may have
been of a very short distance and, although the parties no longer reside in the issuing state, they
may prefer to continue to have the child-support order be governed by the same issuing tribunal
because they continue to have a strong affiliation with it. For example, the child-support order
may have been issued by a tribunal of Washington, D.C. Subsequently the obligee and child have
moved to Virginia, the obligor now resides in Maryland, and perhaps one or both parties
continue to be employed in Washington. Subsection (a)(2) authorizes that under such factual
circumstances the parties reasonably may prefer to continue to deal with the issuing tribunal even
though the state is “not the residence” of the parties or child. as an exception to the general rules
of CEJ for modifications of a support order.
The other side of the coin follows logically. Just as subsection (a) defines the retention of
continuing, exclusive jurisdiction, by clear implication the subsection also identifies how
jurisdiction to modify may be lost. That is, if all the relevant persons—the obligor, the individual
obligee, and the child—have permanently left the issuing state, absent an agreement the issuing
tribunal no longer has an appropriate nexus with the parties or child to justify the exercise of
jurisdiction to modify its child-support order. Further, the issuing tribunal will have no current
evidence readily available to it about the factual circumstances of anyone involved, and the
taxpayers of that state will have no reason to expend public funds on the process. Note, however,
that the original order of the issuing tribunal remains valid and enforceable. That order is in
effect not only in the issuing state, but also in those states in which the order has been registered.
The order also may be registered and enforced in additional states even after the issuing tribunal
has lost its power to modify its order, see Sections 601-604, infra. In sum, the original order
remains in effect until it is properly modified in accordance with the narrow terms of Sections
609-612, infra.
Subsection (b)(1) explicitly provides that the parties may agree in a record that the issuing
tribunal should relinquish its continuing, exclusive jurisdiction to modify so that a tribunal in
another state may assume CEJ to modify the child-support order. It is believed that such consent
seldom occurs because of the almost universal desire of each party to prefer his or her local
tribunal. The principle that the parties should be allowed to agree upon an alternate forum if they
so choose also extends to a situation in which all the parties and the child have left the issuing
state and are in agreement that a tribunal of the state in which only the movant resides shall
assume modification jurisdiction, see Section 611.
Although subsections (a) and (b) identify the methods for the retention and the loss of
continuing, exclusive jurisdiction by the issuing tribunal, this section does not confer jurisdiction
to modify on another tribunal. Modification requires that a tribunal have personal jurisdiction
over the parties and meet other criteria as provided in Sections 609 through 615, infra.
Related to Convention: art. 18. Limit on proceedings.
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