Court Opinion

ID: 9583125
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:35:03.254519+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:51.467759
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur in the judgment that the trial court order must be vacated and the case remanded for domestication, but the law does not require the court to enter an order domesticating the foreign judgment. It will be accomplished if Mr. McGowan files it with the clerk of court, as a foreign judgment, pursuant to either OCGA § 19-9-55 or § 9-12-132. No court order is necessary to domesticate the Texas decree.
In Mr. McGowan’s petition for change of custody, he asserted that the Texas decree “should be domesticated by [the trial court] pursuant to OCGA § 9-12-130 et seq., and thereby made the judgment of [that] court,” and in his prayer for relief he demanded that this be done.
OCGA § 9-12-130 et seq. constitutes the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Law and simply requires, for domestication, that an authenticated copy of the foreign judgment be “filed in the office of the clerk of any court of competent jurisdiction of this state.” OCGA § 9-12-132. Thereafter, according to that statute, it is to have the same effect as would a Georgia judgment. The problem here is that Mr. McGowan did not file it; he merely attached it as an evidentiary exhibit to his petition to change custody. It was thus, at best, in the case under the evidentiary rule contained in OCGA § 24-7-24. The clerk did not have it recorded as a separate judgment, as would be done for a fee had it been filed as a foreign judgment under the Uniform Act. OCGA § 9-12-135.
OCGA § 19-9-55 allows domestication of foreign custody decrees specifically, within the law governing child custody proceedings generally. It provides the exact same procedure, i.e., a simple filing with the clerk. There is a slight difference in what must be filed, in that OCGA § 9-12-132 calls for a copy “authenticated in accordance with an act of Congress or statutes of this state,” whereas OCGA § 19-9-55 calls for “[a] certified and exemplified copy.” But in both instances the *366domestication is achieved by a proper filing. And in both instances the effect is the same; both are treated as judgments or decrees of Georgia, for purposes of enforcement.
As stated by the Supreme Court soon after enactment of OCGA § 19-9-55 in 1978, “foreign custody decrees are enforceable merely by filing a certified copy with the clerk of the superior court. Since a certified copy of the [foreign] decree appears in the record, it was properly ‘domesticated’ pursuant to this Act.” Roehl v. O’Keefe, 243 Ga. 696, 697 (1) (256 SE2d 375) (1979).
The rub comes when a parent or other person in the court-decreed custody arrangement desires to modify it. In such instances, as in this case, the Georgia court cannot change the now-domesticated foreign judgment until it first makes two rulings: (1) the foreign court either no longer has jurisdiction or declines jurisdiction to modify its decree; and (2) the Georgia court does have jurisdiction.* 1 That is required by OCGA § 19-9-54, which has nothing to do with domestication but rather with changing an enforceable domesticated foreign custody decree. It is in keeping with the requirements of the federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (PKPA), 28 USC § 1738A (a), (f). See Garrett v. Garrett, 220 Ga. App. 172, 174 (469 SE2d 330) (1996), aff’d, 267 Ga. 356 (477 SE2d 804) (1996). The Supreme Court in Garrett refers to the PKPA/OCGA § 19-9-54 requirement as a two-prong test. 267 Ga. at 357.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court in Pearson v. Pearson, 263 Ga. 400 (435 SE2d 40) (1993), referred to the order making these rulings as being an order “domesticating” the foreign judgment. A “domesticated” judgment is one which is “[m]ade domestic or converted to domestic use.” Black’s Law Dictionary, p. 434 (4th ed.). See NationsBank v. Gibbons, 226 Ga. App. 610, 612 (487 SE2d 417) (1997) (a filed foreign judgment thereby becomes a domesticated Georgia judgment and has the same effect as a Georgia judgment). The requisite order only sets the stage for authority to change the domesticated order. So, for example, a party could enforce the provisions of that foreign custody order once it is properly filed with the clerk, without an order ruling on the two issues set out in OCGA § 19-9-54. They only establish the threshold for a Georgia court’s consideration of revision. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Pearson, supra at 401, that “an order of domestication was a necessary prerequisite to the trial court’s authority to modify,” confuses domestication, *367which is done by filing with the clerk, with authority to modify.
Of course, as recognized in Blue v. Blue, 243 Ga. 22 (252 SE2d 452) (1979), the decree must be domesticated before it can be modified. But domestication is only one step, and an easy non-judicial one at that. The second step is the trial court’s rulings on the two issues created by OCGA § 19-9-54. When a foreign decree is domesticated and thereafter the trial court rules favorably on the two statutory prerequisites, then it may move to the subject of modification on its merits.
In Pearson the Supreme Court cited Sovern v. Sovern, 156 Ga. App. 752, 753 (3) (275 SE2d 791) (1980), for the proposition that the petitioner could amend her petition to seek domestication in the same action in which she sought modification. While that would be true for the OCGA § 19-9-54 issues, it would not be necessary for domestication under either OCGA § 19-9-55 or § 9-12-132; proper filing with the clerk under either one of those two statutes would be sufficient.
On the other hand, if petitioner were following the old, more cumbersome procedure for domesticating foreign judgments, then a prayer for a court order would be appropriate. Okekpe v. Commerce Funding Corp., 218 Ga. App. 705, 707-714 (463 SE2d 23) (1995) (Beasley, C. J., concurring specially). An example is Crosby v. Wenzoski, 164 Ga. App. 266 (296 SE2d 162) (1982). That action to domesticate a foreign judgment shows its treatment as a separate litigated case, complete with motion for summary judgment, motion for judgment on the pleadings, counterclaim, and appeal.
That procedure seems to be the one which the petitioner was following in Sovern, although the opinion in that case does not identify it. OCGA § 9-12-132 was not yet enacted, and OCGA § 19-9-55 had just been enacted two years before Sovern; the action would have been filed much before that decision was published. Even under the Uniform Act which was made Georgia law in 1986, the old procedure remains available, albeit only for use by judgment creditors. OCGA § 9-12-136.
Parker v. Parker, 233 Ga. 434 (211 SE2d 729) (1975), and White v. White, 233 Ga. 289 (210 SE2d 817) (1974), both involved the old separate procedure for domestication, i.e., the filing of a complaint for domestication, which would indeed lead to a court order of domestication. At the time both of these cases were decided, neither the Uniform Act (specifically OCGA § 9-12-132) nor the similarly streamlined domestication procedure for foreign custody decrees contained in OCGA § 19-9-55 had yet been made law in Georgia. In Blue, supra, the Supreme Court referred to both of these cases as authority for domestication for foreign alimony and child support decrees. The action in Blue probably arose before the effective date of OCGA § 19-*3689-55 and certainly before the adoption of the Uniform Act, so the old method was likely the only one available.
Decided March 19, 1998.
York, McRae & York, Robert T Monroe, for appellant.
Ana M. Rountree, Julie W. Cain, for appellee.
In sum, a court order finding jurisdiction upon a consideration of the two prerequisites set out in OCGA § 19-9-54 does not constitute an order of domestication. Instead, properly filing the foreign custody decree as instructed in OCGA § 19-9-55 fully accomplishes domestication.

 Mulle v. Yount, 211 Ga. App. 584 (1) (440 SE2d 210) (1993) (non-precedential), is an example of a case in which the issue was whether the two-prong jurisdictional test of OCGA § 19-9-54 was met. The same issue, but under the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act, was the subject of the first division of the opinion in Henderson v. Justice, 223 Ga. App. 591, 592 (1) (478 SE2d 434) (1996).