Chalmers v. Burrough

• Decision Date: 31 July 2020
• Docket Number: No. 121,108,121,108
• Parties: Almario V. CHALMERS, Appellant, v. Brittany BURROUGH, Appellee.
• Court: Kansas Court of Appeals

58 Kan.App.2d 531

472 P.3d 586

Almario V. CHALMERS, Appellant,

v.Brittany BURROUGH, Appellee.

No. 121,108

Court of Appeals of Kansas.

Opinion filed July 31, 2020.

Jeffrey N. Lowe, of Lowe Law, LLC, and Jessica F. Leavitt, of Stinson, Lasswell & Wilson, LC, of Wichita, for appellant.

Cheryl J. Roberts, of Wichita, for appellee.

Before Atcheson, P.J., Warner, J., and Walker, S.J.

Warner, J.:

As families move from state to state, courts are often asked to enforce or modify child-support obligations that arose elsewhere. While it is important that courts have the ability to address these families' needs, that practice raises the possibility of overlapping or inconsistent child-support orders issued in different states. To solve this conundrum, legislatures in all 50 states have adopted the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA). Under UIFSA, only one state's courts have exclusive subject-matter jurisdiction over the parties' support obligations at a given time. To transfer that exclusive jurisdiction to a court in a different state, a party must register the order in the new state in accordance with UIFSA and then meet other procedural requirements.

In this case, Almario Chalmers attempted to register and then modify a Florida child-support order in Kansas (where his daughter and her mother live). The Kansas district court initially confirmed registration of the Florida order and modified Chalmers' child-support obligation. But it later set aside both orders and dismissed the case because Chalmers did not substantially comply with UIFSA's registration requirements. We affirm that dismissal, as the failure to properly register the order under UIFSA prevented the Kansas court from ever acquiring jurisdiction to hear the case.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A Florida district court ordered Chalmers to pay Brittany Burrough child support in 2015 for the care of their daughter. The amount of child support was based on Chalmers' income while he played basketball for the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association. Chalmers retired from the NBA in November 2018 and moved out of Florida. Burrough and the child are Kansas residents.

Chalmers wanted to reduce his monthly child-support obligation after his change in employment, but he was no longer a Florida resident and could not do so in Florida. In October 2018, Chalmers filed a petition to register and modify the Florida child-support order in Kansas under UIFSA.

The petition to register the Florida order included its date and case name. It stated Chalmers was current with his child-support obligations and that there was no known arrearage. The petition also indicated that "Two (2) copies of the Child Support Order sought to be registered [were] included with this Petition, one of which is certified." But no copies of the Florida support order were actually attached to the petition.

Chalmers provided copies of this petition to Burrough, along with a "Notice of Registration of Support Order Under [UIFSA]." This notice included a paragraph titled "Automatic Confirmation," stating, "If you do not contest the validity or enforcement of the registered order within twenty (20) days, this order will automatically be confirmed by operation of law." Burrough did not contest the petition within 20 days of receiving these materials.

On the 20th day, Chalmers requested—and the district court entered—a journal entry registering the Florida order in Kansas. The journal entry stated, "By operation of the law, this Court accepts registration of the attached Order of the State of Florida, Miami-Dade County Judicial Circuit, Case Number 10-19606 ... under the provisions of the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA)." (Emphasis added.) One week later, the district court temporarily modified Chalmers' support obligation "by agreement of the parties." The court ordered a hearing on Chalmers' request for permanent modification of his child-support obligation after the Thanksgiving holiday and noted that Burrough had failed to contest the validity of the Florida child-support order within the 20-day window.

On January 15, 2019, Burrough filed a motion to set aside the court's temporary order because Burrough had not agreed to it. Around the same time, Chalmers notified the court that he had mistakenly forgotten to include the Florida order with his petition for registration and moved for permission to amend his registration to include the Florida order.

The next day, Burrough filed a "Motion to Dismiss Case and Void Judgment Due to Lack of Jurisdiction and Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction." Burrough argued the Florida support order had never been registered because Chalmers did not comply with UIFSA's procedural requirements; since Chalmers had not attached the Florida order, the district court's confirmation and modification orders were void. She asked the court to "[d]ismiss this case for lack of jurisdiction because no Florida child support order(s) are registered." Burrough also alleged that Chalmers was still a resident of Florida. Chalmers filed a motion in opposition to Burrough's motion, claiming she was barred from raising the matter under K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 23-36,608 because she had not challenged the registration within 20 days of receiving notice it had been filed.

The district court dismissed Chalmers' registration of the Florida order as defective (because the out-of-state order had not been attached) and vacated its modification of his support obligation. In so ruling, the court rejected Chalmers' arguments that he had substantially complied with UIFSA's registration requirements and that the omission of the order was merely a clerical error. It explained:

"This argument misses the real issue before the court, whether Chalmers has substantially complied with the requirements for presenting the orders of another state's court to the Kansas Court for enforcement. The Florida Child Support Order, itself, certified by the court of the issuing state, is the actual subject of the registration. The presence of the certified document is fundamental to such registration. Failure to include the order is more than a mere clerical error or excusable neglect, it is a critical element of the registration process."

Chalmers appeals.

DISCUSSION

Before the enactment of UIFSA, Kansas courts had jurisdiction "to establish, vacate, or modify" child-support orders "even when that obligation had been created in another jurisdiction." Gentzel v. Williams , 25 Kan. App. 2d 552, 556, 965 P.2d 855 (1998). The result of this expansive authority was "often multiple, inconsistent obligations existing for the same" parent, as well as "injustice in that [parents] could void their responsibility by moving to another jurisdiction and having their support obligations modified or even vacated." 25 Kan. App. 2d at 556, 965 P.2d 855. See, e.g., Burnworth v. Hughes , 234 Kan. 69, 76-77, 670 P.2d 917 (1983) (Kansas court could not enforce California child-support order but had jurisdiction to enter a different, albeit conflicting, order); Dipman v. Dipman , 6 Kan. App. 2d 844, 635 P.2d 1279 (1981) (reversing dismissal of action to modify child-support obligation included in a Georgia divorce decree).

The Kansas Legislature—along with legislatures in all other states—enacted UIFSA to address these concerns. Now codified in Kansas at K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 23-36,601 et seq., UIFSA establishes a uniform, nationwide procedure for issuing, modifying, and enforcing child and spousal support. McNabb v. McNabb , 31 Kan. App. 2d 398, 407-08, 65 P.3d 1068 (2003).

At its core, UIFSA was adopted to prevent the issuance of multiple support orders by different jurisdictions as families move between and interact with different states. To prevent the issuance of overlapping or conflicting orders, UIFSA establishes a "one-order" system whereby all states that have adopted UIFSA recognize and enforce the same obligation consistently. Gentzel , 25 Kan. App. 2d at 556-57, 965 P.2d 855. The goal of this uniform structure is to ensure that " ‘only one valid support order may be effective at any one time.’ " In re Marriage of Amezquita & Archuleta , 101 Cal. App. 4th 1415, 1420, 124 Cal. Rptr. 2d 887 (2002).

To achieve this aim, UIFSA adopts the principle " ‘of continuing, exclusive jurisdiction to establish and modify’ " child support. Gentzel , 25 Kan. App. 2d at 556, 965 P.2d 855 (quoting Sampson and Kurtz, UIFSA: An Interstate Support Act for the 21st Century , 27 Fam. Law Qtrly. 85, 88 [1993] ); see K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 23-36,205. The court that issued the controlling child-support order

" ‘is the only body entitled to modify [its child-support order] so long as it retains continuing, exclusive jurisdiction under the Act. Another state, while required by UIFSA to enforce the existing decree, has no power under that Act to modify the original decree or enter a support order at a different level.’ " Gentzel , 25 Kan. App. 2d at 556, 965 P.2d 855 (quoting 27 Fam. Law Qtrly. at 88).

Under this framework, Kansas courts may enforce out-of-state orders concerning child support at any time, as long as they have personal jurisdiction over the parties and the out-of-state order is properly registered according to the procedures set forth in UIFSA. See K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 23-36,601 through K.S.A 2019 Supp. 23-36,603. Once those requirements are met, a Kansas court "shall recognize and enforce, but may not modify , a registered support order." (Emphasis added.) K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 23-36,603(c). Efforts to merely enforce out-of-state orders have no effect on the continuing, exclusive jurisdiction of the out-of-state tribunal to modify its existing orders. See K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 23-36,610.

A Kansas court does not have jurisdiction to establish or modify child-support obligations in a case originally filed in another state (like Florida) unless continuing, exclusive jurisdiction over that case is first transferred to Kansas. See K.S.A. 2019 Supp....