Opinion ID: 789256
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Validity of the Decree

Text: 55 There is no question that the New York County Supreme Court had jurisdiction to enter a judgment of divorce between Brian Bagot and Frances Wright. In New York, the Supreme Court can obtain in rem jurisdiction over a marriage if (among other possibilities) either party to the marriage has resided in New York for two years. N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law § 230(5) (2004). But the New York courts have jurisdiction over child custody determinations only if they can meet the higher standards of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (UCCJA), N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law § 75-d(1) (1999), which we set forth in the margin (and rely upon infra ). 10 The mere fact of divorce jurisdiction does not create child-custody jurisdiction; the requisites for the two types of jurisdiction are different and must be separately satisfied. See, e.g., Foley v. Foley, 170 Misc.2d 87, 649 N.Y.S.2d 999 (N.Y.Sup.Ct.1996); see generally Merril Sobie, Practice Commentary to N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law § 76, section 2 (2002). 56 At the time of his parents' divorce, Bagot had never set foot in New York, so paragraph (a) of § 75-d(1), which applies where New York is the child's home state, could not have created jurisdiction. Paragraph (b), which requires a significant connection with New York and substantial evidence within the state, was similarly inapplicable, again because there is no contention that Bagot had ever been to New York to establish such a connection. Maximum rather than minimum contacts are required, Vanneck v. Vanneck, 49 N.Y.2d 602, 427 N.Y.S.2d 735, 404 N.E.2d 1278, 1282 (1980), and the legislative intent behind paragraph (b) was to limit jurisdiction rather than to proliferate it, id. Paragraph (c), which creates emergency jurisdiction where the child is physically present in New York, was inapplicable because Bagot was not in the state at the time of the disputed custody grant. 57 This leaves us with paragraph (d), a fallback provision allowing New York to take jurisdiction where no other state has done so and such an exercise of jurisdiction is in the best interests of the child. 11 However, we doubt that a New York court would have assumed jurisdiction over a child who had never set foot in the state, and who lived with his mother in Guyana, on the basis of § 75-d(1)(d). Cf. Sobie, Practice Commentary to N.Y. Dom. Rel. § 75-d, section 4 (1988) (The possibility of using the [§ 75-d(1)(d)] provision is fairly remote; examples might include migrant workers, hobos or perhaps members of a circus troop.). As long as it was not manifestly against Bagot's best interests to leave Guyana in control of his custody, a New York court would not have taken jurisdiction over his custody under paragraph (d). See Nesa v. Baten, 290 A.D.2d 663, 664, 736 N.Y.S.2d 173 (N.Y.App.Div.2002) ([I]t is difficult to see how the [Bangladeshi] children's best interests would be served by having a New York court litigate issues of custody.). 58 Even if there was some conceivable way that the New York court could have taken jurisdiction under paragraph (d), such jurisdiction would require findings that it was in the best interests of the child. See People ex rel. Bruzzese v. Bruzzese, 70 A.D.2d 957, 958, 417 N.Y.S.2d 763 (N.Y.App.Div.1979). The two-page form order lacks such findings, and provides no reason to believe that the New York court believed that it had § 75-d(d) jurisdiction over the child custody determination. 59 Thus there is no real doubt that the New York County Supreme Court lacked jurisdiction to determine Bagot's custody. The divorce decree appears to have been simply a form order, normally used for in-state divorce cases where custody over the children is easily established; the presiding justice presumably did not notice that he was exceeding his jurisdiction, and no one pointed out this error at the time. 12 60