Opinion ID: 2464465
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Whether Nebraska's Exercise of Jurisdiction Accorded with the PKPA

Text: The PKPA dictates whether Colorado must accord full faith and credit to the Nebraska custody determination. If Nebraska exercised jurisdiction consistently with the provisions of the PKPA, then Colorado must accord it full faith and credit. However, if the Nebraska determination was not made consistently with the requirements of the PKPA, then the custody determination is not entitled to full faith and credit enforcement in Colorado. The PKPA provides that a state's custody determination is made consistently with the PKPA when: (1) the court of the state has jurisdiction under its own law, 28 U.S.C. § 1738A(c)(1); [2] and (2) the exercise of jurisdiction meets one of the conditions set out in 28 U.S.C. § 1738A(c)(2). [3] Because we determine that the Nebraska district court did not have jurisdiction over this custody determination under its own lawas it was not the child's home state, and the home state did not decline jurisdictionwe therefore conclude that the PKPA does not obligate Colorado to accord the Nebraska determination full faith and credit. Nebraska Revised Statutes section 43-1238(a), which sets out the requirements for Nebraska to exercise jurisdiction to make an initial child custody determination, provides four independent bases for jurisdiction to make an initial child custody determination. Only the first two are relevant here: (1) home state and (2) significant connection. Neb.Rev.Stat. § 43-1238(a). These four bases constitute the exclusive jurisdictional basis for making a child custody determination by a court of [Nebraska]. Id. § 43-1238(b). As with the PKPA, Nebraska Revised Statutes section 43-1238(a) gives priority to home state jurisdiction. See also 28 U.S.C. § 1738A(c)(2)(A)-(D). To have jurisdiction to enter an initial custody award, Nebraska Revised Statutes section 43-1238(a)(1) requires that, at the commencement of the custody proceeding, Nebraska must be the home state of the child or have been the home state of the child within the last six months. [A] court's jurisdiction must exist at the time an action is filed and cannot be attained after such date regardless of the amount of time spent by the children in the state subsequent to the filing of a custody action. White v. White, 271 Neb. 43, 709 N.W.2d 325, 332 (2006). The home state of the child is the state in which a child lived with a parent or a person acting as a parent for at least six consecutive months immediately before the commencement of a child custody proceeding including a period of temporary absence. Neb.Rev. Stat. § 43-1227(7). Construed together, sections 43-1227 and 43-1238 of the Nebraska Revised Statutes provide for six-month extended home state jurisdiction, meaning that a state is the child's home state if the child lived in the state for a consecutive six-month period either immediately before the filing of the custody proceeding or at any time during the six months before the filing of the custody proceeding. See Neb.Rev.Stat. §§ 43-1227(7), -1238(a). If Nebraska is not the home state of the child, then it may exercise significant connection jurisdiction only if : (1) another state does not have jurisdiction as the child's home state; or (2) the home state has declined to exercise jurisdiction on the ground that [Nebraska] is the more appropriate forum under section 43-1244 or 43-1245. Neb.Rev.Stat. § 43-1238(a)(2) (emphasis added). To confer significant connection jurisdiction to Nebraska based on the home state declining jurisdiction, Nebraska Revised Statutes section 43-1238(a)(2) requires that the child's home state declined jurisdiction on the ground that either the home state is an inconvenient forum under section 43-1244 or the party seeking jurisdiction in the home state engaged in unjustifiable conduct under section 43-1245. As to declining jurisdiction on grounds of inconvenient forum, Nebraska statutes and case law require the court declining jurisdiction to consider a list of statutory factors and allow the parties to submit information for its consideration before declining jurisdiction. Neb.Rev.Stat. § 43-1244(b); Watson v. Watson, 272 Neb. 647, 724 N.W.2d 24, 34-35 (2006). Nebraska Revised Statutes section 43-1244 states that, to determine whether Nebraska is an inconvenient forum, a court shall allow the parties to submit information and shall consider a list of factors. These factors include, among others: (1) the length of time the child has resided outside the forum state; (2) any agreement of the parties as to which state should assume jurisdiction; (3) the nature and location of the evidence required to resolve the pending litigation, including the testimony of the child; and (4) the familiarity of the court of each state with the facts and issues in the pending litigation. Neb.Rev.Stat. § 43-1244; see In re Floyd B., 254 Neb. 443, 577 N.W.2d 535, 546 (1998) (stating factors a court was required to consider under a previous version of the statute). Interpreting section 43-1244, the Supreme Court of Nebraska held that a district court that did not engage in a proper consideration of the relevant factors failed to comply with the UCCJEA and, thus, committed reversible error. Watson, 724 N.W.2d at 34-35. A court may also decline jurisdiction on the basis that the party seeking jurisdiction in the forum state engaged in unjustifiable conduct. [4] Neb.Rev.Stat. § 43-1245. The purpose of Nebraska Revised Statutes section 43-1245, construed together with home state prioritization, is to prevent parents from abducting their children or engaging in reprehensible conduct such as removing, secreting, retaining, or restraining the child in order to establish jurisdiction. UCCJEA § 208 cmt. 1. Discussing a previous version of this statute, the Supreme Court of Nebraska has defined unjustifiable conduct as where one party without consent improperly removes the child from [the] party with [the] right to custody. White, 709 N.W.2d at 333. Allowing a party to establish jurisdiction on this basis, the court stated, would circumvent[ ] the intent of the jurisdiction laws.' Id. (quoting Marriage of Ieronimakis, 66 Wash.App. 83, 831 P.2d 172, 177 (1992)). In this case, the child lived in Colorado with at least one parent from August 2003 until the summer of 2004, more than six consecutive months. Then, after the child's scheduled visit with her father in Nebraska, the father refused to return the child to Colorado. After the father refused to return the child to Colorado, the child lived in Nebraska with her father for just over five months before her father commenced the Nebraska custody action in November 2004. In its September 2006 order giving custody of the child to the father, the Nebraska district court failed to state its grounds for exercising jurisdiction under the UCCJEA. Because the child had lived in Colorado for six consecutive months immediately before the father commenced the custody proceeding and had not lived in Nebraska for six consecutive months, Colorado, and not Nebraska, was the child's home state. To allow the father to establish jurisdiction in Nebraska by refusing to return the child to the mother, as required by the parties' agreement that the child would reside in Colorado with her mother, would contravene the purposes of the UCCJEA and the PKPA, both of which seek to prevent parental kidnapping and equivalent misconduct. Because Nebraska was not the child's home state at the time the father commenced the custody proceeding, the Nebraska court could only have properly exercised jurisdiction if Colorado declined to exercise jurisdiction on the ground that Nebraska is the more appropriate forum under section 43-1244 or 43-1245 of the Nebraska Revised Statutes. Thus, we consider whether Colorado declined jurisdiction on one of these grounds. In its April 2007 order, the Nebraska district court acknowledged that the child had been living in Nebraska for less than six months when the father commenced the custody proceeding, but it concluded that it could properly exercise jurisdiction because Colorado declined jurisdiction. The Nebraska court based its determination that Colorado declined jurisdiction on the decision of the Adams County district court to dismiss the mother's action for dissolution of marriage. In its minute order dismissing the case, the Adams County district court stated only that the State of Nebraska has jurisdiction over this matter. It failed to provide reasons for declining jurisdiction and to engage in even a cursory consideration of whether Nebraska is a more appropriate forum. The district court did not mention child custody, the UCCJEA, home state jurisdiction, inconvenient forum, or unjustifiable conduct. Like the Nebraska district court in Watson, the Adams County district court failed to engage in any consideration of the relevant statutory factors for inconvenient forum, as required by Nebraska Revised Statutes section 43-1244. See 724 N.W.2d at 34-35. It also failed to consider whether the party seeking to invoke its jurisdiction engaged in unjustifiable conduct under Nebraska Revised Statutes section 43-1245 (or its Colorado equivalent). The district court did not consider that the parties agreed that the child would reside in Colorado with the mother and that the father likely engaged in unjustifiable conduct by retaining the child in Nebraska after the termination of her scheduled visit and, thus, did not decline jurisdiction on those grounds. Accordingly, because Colorado, and not Nebraska, had jurisdiction as the child's home state and Colorado did not decline jurisdiction on the ground that [Nebraska] is the more appropriate forum under [Nebraska Revised Statutes] section 43-1244 or 43-1245, Neb.Rev.Stat. § 43-1238(a)(2), Nebraska did not have jurisdiction over this matter under its own law. As Nebraska did not have jurisdiction under its own law, the PKPA does not require Colorado to accord the Nebraska custody determination full faith and credit.