JUSTIS, APPELLANT, v. JUSTIS ET AL., APPELLEES.
No. 97-17
Supreme Court of Ohio
April 1, 1998
[Citе as Justis v. Justis, 1998-Ohio-626.]; 81 Ohio St.3d 312
Submitted January 21, 1998. APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Meigs County, No. 96CA11.
Under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act,
{¶ 1} Rhonda Kaye Justis, plaintiff-appellant, and Charles Rex Justis, defendant-appellee, were married on April 17, 1987, and divorced on July 5, 1990. At the time of the divorce, the parties had one daughter and were expecting their second daughter. The court awarded custody of the children to appellant and granted appellee reasonable visitation rights. Appellee Darlene Newell, the paternal grandmother, sought visitation rights. Newell was subsequently added as a third-party defendant and was awarded visitation rights.
{¶ 2} Appellant moved to terminate her еx-husband‘s visitation rights, claiming that he was sexually abusing the older child. The court initially believed her claims and terminated Mr. Justis‘s visitation rights in August 1992. Soon after,
{¶ 3} On April 5, 1994, appellant filed a motion seeking court permission to move with the children to North Carolina, to pursue a job opportunity. The court held a hearing on April 19, 1994 and grаnted appellant‘s motion. The order was journalized on May 17, 1994. Appellant moved to North Carolina with the children on April 20, 1994.
{¶ 4} In its May 17, 1994 order, the court also modified custody. To ensure that the children would continue their relationship with their father, the trial court named appellant residential parent for the school year and appellee Justis residential parent for the summer months. Mr. Justis was also awarded visitation during the school year. The court noted that it was in the best interest of the children to continue visitation with Newell. Because of appellant‘s previous attempts to cut off her ex-husband‘s contact with the girls, the court warned appellant that if she failed to return thе children to their father for the summer, she could be charged with kidnapping.
{¶ 5} On June 13, 1994, appellant filed a motion for stay of execution and asked the court to readjust the summer visitation schedule to give her parents, who reside in Ohio, visitation rights. The court denied these motions on June 14, 1994. That same day, appellant filed a complaint in Forsyth County, North Carolina, asking North Carolina to assume jurisdiction for the purpose of modifying the May
{¶ 6} The North Carolina court issued an ex parte protective order, restraining appellees from removing the children from North Carolina or from appellant‘s custody. Subsequently, while motions were still pending in Ohio, on October 20, 1994, the North Carolina court determined that it had jurisdiction over the matter and granted appellant exclusive permanent custody of the children. Although appellee and Newell were notified of the North Carolina proceedings, they did not appear in or contest the North Carolina case or appeal the judgment.
{¶ 7} Meanwhile, in Ohio, the proceedings were ongoing. On September 20, 1994, appellees filed a contempt motion against appellant for her failure to abide by the terms of the May 17, 1994 order. In response, appellant filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. On October 25, 1994, appellant filed the North Carolina decree with the Ohio trial court. Following a hearing on appellant‘s motion to dismiss, the court found that it had jurisdiction over the pending dispute, and that Ohio, not North Carolina, was the proper forum to resolve issues relating to the custody of the сhildren. The trial court subsequently held appellant in contempt for her failure to abide by the terms of the May 17, 1994 custody order.
{¶ 8} On appeal, appellant challenged the jurisdiction of the Ohio court to find her in contempt. She also argued that the Ohio court should have recognized the North Carolina decree, which modified the May 17, 1994 custody determination. The court of appeals affirmed. It found that the Ohio court had jurisdiction over the contempt motion, that the North Carolina court lacked jurisdiction to modify the Ohio custody decree, and that Ohio was not required to accord the North Carolina order full faith and credit.
Eslocker, Hodson & Oremus Co., L.P.A., and T. E. Eslocker, for appellant.
FRANCIS E. SWEENEY, SR., J.
{¶ 10} In this case, we must decide which state court, Ohio or North Carolina, had jurisdiction to rule on the custody dispute between the parties.
{¶ 11} Generally, “[t]he court in which a decree of divorce is originally rendered retains continuing jurisdiction over matters relating to the custody, care, and support of the minor children of the parties.” Loetz v. Loetz (1980), 63 Ohio St.2d 1, 2, 17 O.O.3d 1, 406 N.E.2d 1094. However, a jurisdictional dispute may arise when one parent moves out of state with the children. The question then becomes which state has the authority to exercise jurisdiction over the matter.
{¶ 12} To help resolve interstate custody disputes, the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (“UCCJA“) was drafted in 1968 and adopted by Ohio in 1977. See
{¶ 13} In deciding the question of which state court should exercise jurisdiction in this interstate custody dispute, it is necessary to review the pertinent sections of
“(A) No court of this state that has jurisdiction to make a parenting determination relative to a child shall exercise that jurisdiction unless one of the follоwing applies:
“(1) This state is the home state of the child at the time of commencement of the proceeding, or this state had been the child‘s home state within six months before commencement of the proceeding and the child is absent from this state
“(2) It is in the best interest of the child that a court of this state assumes jurisdiction because the child and his parents, or the child and at least one contestant, have a significant connection with this state, and there is available in this state substantial evidence concerning the child‘s present or future care, protection, training, and personal relationships[.]”
{¶ 14} Similar language is found in the PKPA. See
{¶ 15} In this case, Ohio was the home state of the two children when the custody proceeding was commenced in 1990. Thus, undеr subsection (A)(1), Ohio is the “home state.” Therefore, the trial court satisfied the jurisdictional conditions set forth in
{¶ 16} Additionally, the Ohio court could exercise jurisdiction under
{¶ 17} Again, these requirements have been met. The children have a significant connection to Ohio since several relatives, including their father and their maternal and paternal grandparents, continue to reside here. There is also substantial evidence in Ohio concerning their present and future care, protection, and personal relationships. This evidence includes psychological and counseling reports. The counselors in the relevant Ohio agencies have had a long-standing relationship with the girls and are familiar with their complicated family histories.
{¶ 18} The North Carolina court asserted jurisdiction under similar sections of its own version of the UCCJA, specifically,
{¶ 19} One of the problems inherent in the UCCJA is that some of its provisions, such as the “substantial evidence” and “significant connection” factors cited above (and found in
{¶ 20} In accordance with these principles, we find that the North Carolina court erred in asserting jurisdiction in this case and in failing to recognize that, pursuant to the PKPA, Ohio had continuing jurisdiction.
{¶ 21} North Carolina can satisfy the first prong of the test by asserting that it is the home state of the children, since they resided in North Carolina at the time the court modified the Ohio decree.3
{¶ 22} In sum, we hold as follows: Under the UCCJA,
{¶ 23} We recognize that appellant failed to advise the North Carolina court that a proceeding was pending in Ohio. Nevertheless, as the court of appeals stated, we will not reward appellant for her deception by deferring to the jurisdiction of the North Carolina court where it is clearly inappropriate to do so.
{¶ 24} The evidence in this case demonstrates that appellant was willing to go to any length to deprive appellees of contact with the two children. Not only was there evidence that she fabricated claims of sexual abuse, but the trial court found that she actually abused the children herself in order to cast suspicion on appellees and to cut off their rights to visitation. Just as the trial court began to sort things out and the girls were able to reestablish a loving relationship with their father and paternal grandmother, appellant asked the court for permission to move to North Carolina. We wonder whether the true motive for her relocation was not a job opportunity but the chance to put distance between the girls and their father and to end his parental rights by relitigating issues that the Ohio court had already decided. One of the main goals оf the PKPA was to deter parents from crossing state lines to “forum shop” in order to relitigate custody disputes to reach more favorable results. Tufares v. Wright (1982), 98 N.M. 8, 11, 644 P.2d 522, 525. This is precisely what appellant has attempted to do here. We are unwilling to condone such behavior.
{¶ 26} Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.
Judgment affirmed.
MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, PFEIFER, COOK and LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur.
Notes
“(3) The child is physically present in this state and either has been abandoned or it is necessary in an emergency to protect the child because he has been subjected to or threatened with mistreatment оr abuse or is otherwise neglected or dependent;
“(4) It appears that no other state would have jurisdiction under prerequisites substantially in accordance with division (A)(1), (2), or (3) of this section, or a court in another state has declined to exercise jurisdiction on the ground that this state is the more appropriate forum to make a parenting determination relative to the child, and it is in the best interest of the child that this court assume jurisdiction.”
These subsections are inapplicable to this case.