If a Case Is Not Filed in the Appropriate County Based on Where You’ve Got Jurisdiction and Proper Venue, Then You’d File a Motion to Dismiss, Once That’s Granted, You Could File in Another Count
Video Transcribed:
How do you transfer a family law case to another county in Oklahoma? I’m Tulsa attorney James Worth and I’m answering frequently asked questions. And that’s one of the questions we have up today is how do you transfer a case? So first off, if a case is not filed in the appropriate county based on where you’ve got jurisdiction and proper venue, then you’d file a motion to dismiss.
Once that’s granted, you could file in another county. But in this case, I think when we’re talking about transfer, the person’s talking about inconvenient forum. So the court technically has appropriate jurisdiction, but you don’t want it in that court. You want it in another court.
So for you to be able to do that, you would file a motion to transfer for inconvenient forum. And then Oklahoma statutes have some rules on determining whether it’s an inconvenient forum. If the court that it’s filed in determines that it’s inconvenient, then you can transfer it and have it in another county.
So, regarding inconvenient forum, the first thing that you want to go to statutory for the basis for that is title 43, section 103, subsection D. And that talks about inconvenient forum and then the rules and the factors are in a different statute. And that is title 43, section 551-207. And that’s the inconvenient forum statute.
And it talks about the factors to consider, which is domestic violence occurring and would switching it to another forum prevent any kind of domestic violence or harm to the parties or the kids involved, the length of time that the child has resided in the jurisdiction where the child is residing, the distance between the court, this county and the county you’re wanting it to move to, the relative financial circumstances of the party and how the change might affect the parties, any agreement of the parties, previously or now, to move forums, the nature and the location of the evidence.
So is the evidence more easily located and found and brought to court in the current venue, or would it be easier to do that in a different venue because all the evidence is located there?
How expeditiously and quickly each forum would be able to resolve the disputes in the case is another factor for the court to consider, and lastly, the familiarity each court has with the case.
So if the county that it’s in now has already reviewed a lot of things, already heard a lot of things, very familiar with it, it’s going to be less likely to transfer it. So if you want a transfer case, you want to do it earlier in the case.
If the county are wanting to transfer it to, maybe it’s heard related matters, or maybe there’s been protective orders that have been heard there, or prior guardianship’s, or deprived child actions, other cases that have involved the same facts or kids that are involved.
In your case, if those occurred in the other form, then that would favor your position to want to transfer it. But hopefully, that answers your question. If it doesn’t, or if you’ve got specific circumstances you want to talk to a Tulsa family attorney about, you can contact my office by going to makelaweasy.com.
