It's an increasingly common scenario: A couple with children divorces, and one of the parents moves away to a different state. When that happens, which court has jurisdictional authority when it comes to the issue of child support?

That question was recently put to the Ohio Supreme Court with a case involving an Ohio mother who owed child support to her child's maternal grandmother, who had full custody but was living in another state. The grandmother had to seek the payments under the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act. The Cuyahoga Support Enforcement Agency filed a petition on the grandmother's behalf and a support order was issued after an appeal regarding the amount of money the mother owed.

But the appeals court raised another issue in its review: whether the domestic relations court should have jurisdiction over the UIFSA case. Eventually, the court of appeals ruled that it did not, on the grounds that the domestic relations court's jurisdiction was limited to matters involving "a divorce, dissolution of marriage, legal separation, or annulment." Because no divorce was involved (the child had been born out of wedlock), the court of appeals said the case should go to juvenile court.

But the Ohio Supreme Court disagreed with that decision. The Ohio General Assembly defines the jurisdiction of the courts of common pleas and their divisions. The law that defines the powers of the domestic relations court says that court shall exercise the same powers and jurisdiction as other judges of the court of common pleas. It also says the court has the same powers related to all divorce, legal separation and annulment cases. In other words, this court has the same powers as the other court.

Although it's true that the juvenile court has jurisdiction under the UIFSA, it's not exclusive. And that's the rub: There's a big difference between exclusive and non exclusive jurisdiction. Therefore, the domestic relations court did have jurisdiction over the actions for child support under UIFSA, and the Supreme Court sent the case back to the court of appeals for that determination.

Source: Circleville Herald, "Interstate family support," Paul E. Pfeifer, Jan. 8, 2012