Custody

[Guest]

My husbands ex took her kids to Texas without his consent a few years ago. He is currently paying child support but is unable to speak or see them because he lives in MA. We recently found out thru a mutual friend that she is dying of Cancer and planning on leaving the kids with her brother. What can my husband do about the kids? i.e. get custody etc etc.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

My husbands ex took her kids to Texas without his consent a few years ago. He is currently paying child support but is unable to speak or see them because he lives in MA. We recently found out thru a mutual friend that she is dying of Cancer and planning on leaving the kids with her brother. What can my husband do about the kids? i.e. get custody etc etc.

(1) If she took the kids without his consent, then the UCCJEA should apply or its predecessor. It is a law against "kidnapping" of a child over state lines which would prevent the other parent from visitation rights. I have an excerpt below from Wikipedia.

(2) The first step would be determining the situation and trying to speak to the ex. If your husband is seeking custody then there would need to be a hearing. Legal custody isn't just handed over to another party -- or shouldn't be. That said, I've seen some very strange things happen in courts in smaller towns and custody awarded in a manner that is contrary to law.

My thought is that the first step would be to speak to a family law attorney to discuss what specifically can be done. To be honest, we have no idea what the entire situation is regarding your husband and how this situation arose in the first place.

The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction And Enforcement Act ("UCCJEA") is a Uniform Act drafted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in 1997. The UCCJEA has since been adopted by 49 U.S. States... the only state that has not adopted the UCCJEA is Massachusetts, although a bill to enact it is presently pending in its Legislature.

The UCCJEA vests "exclusive [and] continuing jurisdiction" for child custody litigation in the courts of the child's "home state," which is defined as the state where the child has lived with a parent for six consecutive months prior to the commencement of the proceeding (or since birth for children younger than six months). If the child has not lived in any state for at least six months, then a court in a state that has (1) "significant connections" with the child and at least one parent and (2) "substantial evidence concerning the child's care, protection, training, and personal relationships" may assume child-custody jurisdiction. If more than one state has "significant connections" and "substantial evidence...", the courts of those states must communicate and determine which state has the most significant connections to the child. A court which has made a child-custody determination consistent with UCCJEA has exclusive, continuing jurisdiction over the determination until either (1) that court determines that neither the child, the child's parents, nor any person acting as a parent has a significant connection with the State that made the original order and that substantial evidence is no longer available in the State concerning the child's care, protection, training, and personal relationships, or (2) that court or a court of another State determines that the child, the child's parents, and any person acting as a parent do not presently reside in the State that initially made the child custody order.