One of the first questions that must be answered in any court proceeding is whether the presiding court has jurisdiction to hear the case and render judgement. This becomes even more complicated when handling matters that have connections to more than one state. When it comes to child custody cases, jurisdiction is all the more important to settle, as an appeals court making a finding of lack of jurisdiction after years of custody battles can be devastating for a child. The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (“UCCJEA”) was drafted in 1997 to offer states a standardized set of jurisdictional rules for child custody cases. To date, forty-nine states, D.C., and the U.S. Territories of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have adopted the UCCJEA. Massachusetts is currently the only state to have not adopted the UCCJEA. However, the Massachusetts’s Senate voted unanimously to adopt the legislation in July 2025, signaling that the lone holdout might soon codify the UCCJEA. In Alabama, the UCCJEA is codified under Title 30, Chapter 3B of the 1975 Code of Alabama (“Ala. Code §30-3B”) and the jurisdiction of Alabama courts is outlined in sections 201 through 210.
The present case comes to us on appeal from the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals review of a Jackson County child custody case in which a mother is challenging the termination of her parental rights. In November of 2022 the mother and her three children (a four-year-old, three-year-old, and four-month-old) were staying at a motel room in Bridgeport, AL. The mother allowed a friend to stay in the motel room overnight, and the friend overdosed on fentanyl in the same room with the mother and her children. As result of the friend’s death, the mother was charged with “various drug offenses,” and due to the children being present, the Department of Human Resources became involved and picked up the children. After being released from jail, the mother returned to Tennessee where she had been living for the 10 months preceding this incident. The mother initially testified at a hearing sometime between November 2022 and January 2023 that she had been living at her mother’s house in Georgia before she came to the motel in Bridgeport, which is a contradictory statement that the Court of Civil Appeals makes note of in the opinion. Regardless of whether the mother lived in Georgia or Tennessee preceding the events in Bridgeport, however, the Court states that there was “no evidence that the mother had lived in Alabama either before or after the children were removed from her custody” and that either Tennessee or Georgia likely had proper jurisdiction over this case.
The Court of Civil Appeals states that temporary emergency jurisdiction arising from an arrest does not grant the trial court jurisdiction to later consider terminating the mother’s parental rights, but the trial court could have included language that demonstrated the Court’s intention for the “temporary disposition” to be a final custody determination in their order at the initial emergency custody hearing.
Ala. Code §30-3B-201(a) states that the Court can exercise jurisdiction to make an “initial child custody determination” only if one of the four listed criteria are met on page 10 of the opinion. In short: 1) the state is or was the home state of the child, 2) no other state has jurisdiction or the home state of the child declines to exercise jurisdiction, 3) all courts with jurisdiction have declined to exercise jurisdiction stating that an Alabama court would be a more appropriate venue, or 4) no other state has jurisdiction under any of the above listed items.
To establish that Alabama was the home state for the children and establish jurisdiction under subsection (a)(1), DHR must provide evidence that they had resided within Alabama for at least 6 consecutive months prior to the commencement of the proceedings. When examining the record, however, the Court states that, despite the contradictory nature of the mother’s testimonies, it is “clear from the record… that there is no evidence that would support a finding that the children lived in Alabama.”
Next, subsection (a)(2) would allow for the Court to exercise jurisdiction if there was a “significant connection” between the children, a parent, or someone acting as a parent to Alabama. The Court is not convinced of this and states that the undisputed evidence shows that “neither the mother, the children, nor a person acting as a parent” had any connection to Alabama aside from their mere presence. Furthermore, DHR’s attorneys concede that the record shows no evidence of “family ties, employment, school or daycare enrollment, social activities, or medical care in Alabama.” Therefore, there were no “significant connections” that could reasonably be relied upon to establish jurisdiction.
The Court almost immediately dismisses subsection (a)(3) which would have granted Alabama jurisdiction if the state with proper jurisdiction had declined to exercise its due to Alabama being more appropriate. To prove this, however, there must be some sort of court record from either Tennessee or Georgia reflecting their declination of jurisdiction. Because no other court had declined jurisdiction, this subsection was inapplicable.
When discussing subsection (a)(4), the Court reiterates much of what was discussed earlier in the opinion regarding the record indicating that either Tennessee or Georgia were the states with proper jurisdiction over this case. One important note from the Court on this topic was that the “burden of demonstrating the existence of subject-matter jurisdiction falls on the party invoking jurisdiction.” DHR must first show that no other state has jurisdiction to hear this case, but, as the Court of Civil Appeals states repeatedly throughout its opinion, all evidence on the record indicates that either Tennessee or Georgia had proper jurisdiction over this case.
The Court next examines whether the Trial Court had jurisdiction for the termination of parental rights (TPR) proceedings. For this, they go back through the same examination of §30-3B-201(a)(1) through (4) and make the same determinations, with one difference. The Court of Civil Appeals acknowledges that the children lived within Alabama for 15 months after DHR was granted custody prior to the commencement of the TPR proceedings. This 15-month residence was sufficient to establish jurisdiction under (a)(1), but the Court clarifies that the children were only within the state during that time because DHR was granted custody under the void orders from the Juvenile Court. This order was void because the Juvenile Court did not have jurisdiction to issue such orders. Because this order was void, the Court of Civil Appeals states that it could not rightly consider DHR’s custody of the children during the 15-months that they lived within Alabama to meet the “person acting as a parent” criteria found in subsection (a)(1).
Because the Trial Court’s TPR order was void at the time that it was issued, the Court of Civil Appeals ultimately dismissed this mother’s appeal and ordered the Juvenile Court to vacate its order granting the TPR. This mother was, ultimately, able to successfully challenge the termination of her parental rights due to the trial court failing to answer the most important question for a court: do I have the jurisdiction to hear this case?
Now, does that mean that these children will be immediately returned to their mother? Perhaps not. The Trial Court will vacate its order, but DHR could remedy the jurisdictional defects by submitting evidence that Georgia and Tennessee are declining jurisdiction, thereby satisfying the jurisdictional requirements of Ala. Code §30-3B-201(a)(3). A sister agency in Georgia or Tennessee may also step in to have this matter proceed before a court with proper jurisdiction in Georgia or Tennessee. After all, this is the second appeal of this matter, and it has yet to be disposed of on the merits. Perhaps we will see this case again in the future.
Today We are Thankful for our Journey…All the Ups and Downs!
