Lawyers Manual - Unified Court System

UCCJEA and Domestic Violence: A Case Study 127
violence or the child or sibling from mistreatment or abuse.” 30 Here, Ms. P.
could explain her conduct under this provision.
Conclusion
This brief overview is only that. The UCCJEA is a complicated statutory
scheme, replete with cross-references and multi-layered analyses that demand
careful study. A practitioner would do best to spend some time becoming familiar
with the overall structure of the Act, which is divided into three areas: Title I,
“General Provisions”; Title II, “Jurisdiction”; and Title III, “Enforcement.”
Because of the extensive interplay of the various provisions, it would be a
mistake to go forward with a UCCJEA application based only upon a partial
reading of the statutory scheme. While a particular provision may seem exactly
on point, and even dispositive, it will no doubt be subject to modification by
some other provision, such as “inconvenient forum” analysis. Thus any claim
must be assessed in light of the statutory scheme in its entirety.
Preservation of continuing and exclusive home state jurisdiction remains an
important purpose of the UCCJEA. Where there is no compelling reason to
upend that jurisdiction, and a parent still remains in the original jurisdiction, a
foreign court faced with a request for modification will most probably reject the
application, and a client’s chance of success is low. 31 If, however, both parents
and the child have left the original jurisdiction, a new jurisdiction will be much
more inclined to assert modification jurisdiction. 32
Another overriding goal of the UCCJEA is to prevent forum-shopping.
Forum-shopping is not the same, however, as an effort to find relief in a
jurisdiction that will be sensitive to the safety needs of a parent and child fleeing
a batterer. Both Hector G. and Noel D. show how general jurisdictional
priorities can be set aside when domestic violence is a factor in the parent’s
relocation to the new jurisdiction, even when that relocation is in violation of an
existing court order. If there is something about the original jurisdiction that
makes it a particularly unsafe venue for a client, that should be described in
detail to the new court. Whether the concern is community or judicial
indifference to domestic violence, an inability to protect from threatened harm,
particular support or resources available only in the new jurisdiction, these
factors should all be placed before the court in support of a request for
temporary emergency jurisdiction. 33 Domestic violence advocates in the
alternate jurisdiction, if there are any, can be contacted for insight into how