To me, applying certain parts of UCCJEA is a little like the LSAT games section. If Mom and Dad entered into an incorporated agreement for child custody in Virginia, then Mom and children moved to North Carolina, then Dad followed to North Carolina, but did not like it in North Carolina and moved to Texas, will the North Carolina court have jurisdiction to modify the Virginia child custody order. What if Dad filed his motion to modify child custody in North Carolina court, it was heard in North Carolina, but then Mom and child left North Carolina and moved to Wisconsin shortly after the hearing? Earlier this week, Court of Appeals provided a refresher to the N.C. Gen. Stat. § 50A-203, the trial court’s jurisdiction to modify a child custody order by another court. I cut this out of the opinion and glued it to my fridge, by the plumber’s number:
Distilled to its essence, the two-pronged jurisdictional requirement to modify a child custody order is satisfied when the children and a parent (not necessarily both parents) lived in North Carolina for six months immediately preceding the commencement of the proceeding and that the child and both parents had left the other state at the time of the commencement of the proceeding. (internal marks omitted) Smith v. Smith, an unpublished opinion, citing a 2007 decision In re T.J.D.W., 182 N.C. App. 394 (2007).
Mr. Smith’s original motion to modify custody was filed with the North Carolina court while Ms. Smith and the children lived in North Carolina. By the time the matter came for the custody hearing, the entire Smith family left North Carolina. Mr. Smith lived in Texas, Ms. Smith and the children had moved to Wisconsin. The Court did not explicitly address the elephant in the room: wouldn’t it make more sense to relinquish jurisdiction to Wisconsin? The opinion does not suggest that either Smith asked for the forum non-convenience transfer. Additionally, the review of the dates reveals that at the time of the custody hearing, the children only lived in Wisconsin about five months, or one months shy of establishing Wisconsin as their home state. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 5A-201.