Opinion ID: 445255
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: continuing jurisdiction in texas

Text: 26 Having concluded that the district court properly had jurisdiction under the PKPA to resolve the dispute stemming from the conflicting orders issued by the Texas and Louisiana state courts, we must next decide whether the district court was correct in holding that the Texas court has continuing jurisdiction over the visitation and child support provisions of the divorce decree. 27 The operative provisions of the PKPA dictate when a state may enforce or modify its own decrees and when a state may modify or must enforce the decrees of another state. Subsection (c) of the Act sets out requirements as to when a state may make the initial custody determination. There is no allegation that Texas did not have jurisdiction to make the initial custody determination at the time the parties were divorced. 28 We are concerned here with subsection (d), which determines when a state court which has made a child custody determination consistent with the Act continues to have jurisdiction over the order. This subsection provides that a State has continuing jurisdiction as long as the requirement of subsection (c)(1) of this section continues to be met and such State remains the residence of the child or of any contestant. (Emphasis added.) 29 We dispose of the second requirement briefly. The parties do not dispute that Edward Heartfield has been a resident of Texas since the original divorce decree and child custody determination was rendered in May 1979. Thus, the Texas court has met the second requirement of the continuing jurisdiction test. 30 The first requirement is that Texas continues to meet the provisions of subsection (c)(1) of the Act. Subsection (c)(1) requires that Texas have continuing jurisdiction over the custody determination under its own laws. We look therefore to the Texas Family Code in order to determine whether Texas has continuing jurisdiction over the visitation and child support provisions of the decree. 31 Section 11.05 of the Texas Family Code, entitled Continuing Jurisdiction, determines when the courts of Texas will have continuing jurisdiction over suits affecting the parent-child relationship. Subsection (g) contains the essential proscriptions against continuing jurisdiction. It states that a Texas court may not exercise its continuing jurisdiction to modify any part of a decree if the child and all parties have established and continue to maintain their principal residence or home state outside [Texas]. Since Edward Heartfield is a resident of Texas, this part of subsection (g) does not prohibit Texas from continuing to have jurisdiction. 32 The only other proscription against continuing jurisdiction in subsection (g) is found in the reference to Subsection (d) in the following: Except as provided by Subsection (d) of Section 11.53 of this code, a court may exercise its continuing, exclusive jurisdiction to modify all aspects of its decree, including managing conservatorship, possessory conservatorship, possession of and access to the child and support of the child. Thus, under Sec. 11.05(g), Texas has continuing jurisdiction as to all aspects of its decree unless prohibited by subsection (d) of Sec. 11.53. Section 11.53(d) provides: 33 Except on written agreement of all the parties, a court may not exercise its continuing jurisdiction to modify custody if the child and the party with custody have established another home state unless the action to modify was filed before the new home state was acquired. 34 In determining the scope of the exception to continuing jurisdiction contained in Sec. 11.53(d), it is of controlling importance that custody is defined by the Code as managing conservatorship of a child, Sec. 11.52(10), whereas visitation is defined as possession of or access to a child, Sec. 11.52(11). 35 In view of the facts that custody and visitation are separately defined and that visitation is not included in the Sec. 11.53(d) exception, we must conclude that the Texas legislature intended that the exception to continuing jurisdiction contained in Sec. 11.53(d) encompass only modifications in managing conservatorship. Had the Texas legislature intended visitation to be included in the Sec. 11.53(d) exception, the legislature should have used the term custody determination which is defined in Sec. 11.52(2) as a court decision and court orders and instructions providing for the custody of a child, including visitation rights. (Emphasis added.) The conclusion logically follows that a Texas court is prohibited by Sec. 11.53(d) from changing child custody (managing conservatorship) if the child and the parent with custody live outside Texas. [A]ll [other] aspects of its decree, including ... possessory conservatorship, possession of and access to the child [i.e., visitation] and support of the child  remain under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Texas court as provided by Sec. 11.05(g). (Emphasis added.) 36 An analysis of Secs. 11.05(g) and 11.53(d) of the Texas Family Code clearly shows that the Texas legislature intended that changes in managing conservatorship be treated differently with regard to continuing jurisdiction from changes in child support obligations or visitation rights. The legislation prohibits the Texas court from exercising continuing jurisdiction to change child custody long after the custodian and child have acquired a new home state. Tex.Fam.C. Sec. 11.52(5). However, the  'left-behind parent' is ... assured of access to the Texas court for modification of visitation and of the child support obligation. Sampson and Tindall, The UCCJA Comes to Texas--As Amended, Integrated and Improved, 46 Tex.B.J. 1096, 1103 (1983). 2 37 Having established that Texas has continuing jurisdiction, regardless of the residence of the parent with custody, over modification of visitation and child support obligations, we find it important to recognize as a practical matter that such jurisdiction would not bar an emergency need to protect the child requiring an immediate court order in the state of the child's physical presence. We pretermit the question of whether the PKPA would permit Louisiana, as the child's home state, to make temporary emergency orders regarding visitation for such protection. We are not presented with such an emergency situation in this case. We conclude only that under the terms of the PKPA and the Texas Family Code, Texas has the exclusive jurisdiction to issue visitation and child support orders in the regular course of determining such rights as the issue is presented in the case at bar. 38