LD 986
pg. 68
Page 67 of 77 An Act To Enact the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act Amendments of 1996 an... Page 69 of 77
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LR 467
Item 1

 
State of the obligee's residence. Again, almost invariably this
will be the State of residence of the obligor. Similarly,
fairness requires that an obligee seeking to modify or modify
and enforce the existing order in the State of residence of the
obligor will not be subject to a cross-motion to modify custody
or visitation merely because the issuing State has lost its
continuing, exclusive jurisdiction over the support order. The
same is true of the obligor, who also is required to make a
motion to modify support in a State other than that of his or
her residence. Yet another benefit is supplied by the procedure
mandated in this section. The most typical case is a motion to
increase child support by the obligee, the enforcement of which
ultimately will primarily, if not exclusively, take place in the
obligor's State of residence. Modification and enforcement in
the same forum promotes efficiency.

 
Several arguments sustain the jurisdictional choice made by
UIFSA. First, "jurisdiction by ambush" will be avoided. That
is, personal service on either the custodial or noncustodial
party found within the state borders will not yield
jurisdiction to modify. Thus, a parent seeking to exercise
rights of visitation, delivering or picking-up the child for
such visitation, or engaging in unrelated business activity in
the State, will not be involuntarily subjected to protracted
litigation in an inconvenient forum. The rule avoids the
possible chilling effect on the exercise of parental contact
with the child that the possibility of such litigation might
have. Second, almost all disputes about whether the tribunal
has jurisdiction will be eliminated; submission by the
petitioner to the State of residence of the respondent
alleviates this issue completely. Finally, because there is an
existing order the primary focus will shift to enforcement,
thereby curtailing to a degree unnecessary, time-consuming
modification efforts. The array of enforcement procedures
available administratively to support enforcement agencies may
be invoked without resort to action by a tribunal, which had
constituted a bottleneck under RURESA and URESA.

 
There are two exceptions to the rule of Subsection (a)(1)
requiring the petitioner to be a nonresident of the forum in
which modification is sought. First, under Subsection (a)(2)
the parties may agree that a particular forum may serve to
modify the order. Second, Section 613, infra, applies if all
parties have left the original issuing State and now reside in
the same new forum State. Subsection (a)(2), which authorizes
the parties to terminate the continuing, exclusive
jurisdiction of the issuing State by agreement, is based on
several implicit assumptions. First, the subsection applies
even if the issuing
tribunal has continuing, exclusive jurisdiction because one of
the parties or the child continues to reside in that State.
Subsection (a)(2)


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