Jurisdictional Issues in Custody Cases
Mom was awarded sole custody of a child by court in Washington. Dad withholds the child in Washington. Can mom enforce that court order in Oklahoma? I’m Tulsa Lawyer James Wirth and that is the question that we have, it’s a jurisdictional question related to the UCCJEA. And what the law says is that once you have an order in place, that court of that state has continuing exclusive jurisdiction until both parties leave the state.
Challenges of Interstate Custody Enforcement
Emergency jurisdiction can be elsewhere or under the right circumstances, you could file in that original state asserting that it’s an inconvenient form and that state could grant permission to another state, say Oklahoma, to file a proceeding there. But you cannot unilaterally do anything in Oklahoma while Washington has exclusive continuing jurisdiction because they interned the last final order and one of the parties still resides there.
Additionally, the thing that you’re wanting to enforce here is to get your child back and your child’s being withheld by dad in Washington, so the child is in Washington. What, if it were in Oklahoma, what you’d want to do is essentially get a writ of assistance writ of habeas corpus signed by the judge ordering the sheriff to pick the child up and return it to you. There’s probably a similar process in the state of Washington that needs to happen, but because the child is in Washington, jurisdictions in Washington, then that does need to be handled in Washington, it wouldn’t be something for an Oklahoma court to help you with.
Seeking Legal Assistance
Now, once you do get that resolved, the child’s back here living with you after a period of time, if something comes up again, you may have grounds to file and say that Washington is an inconvenient form, but it would have to be the state of Washington that it says that. And then at that point, you could file it in Oklahoma, being that the child resides in Oklahoma. But court here can’t determine it’s an inconvenient form, court there has to determine it’s an inconvenient form, because again, they’ve got an exclusive continuing jurisdiction for as long as one party resides there, which dad still resides there.
Get Expert Legal Advice
So it’s a complicated scenario, definitely want to talk to an attorney. If you want to speak with someone in my office, you can go online to makelaweasy.com, but on this one, you may want to talk to an attorney in Washington state.
