Heartfield v. Heartfield
| Citation | 749 F.2d 1138 |
| Decision Date | 07 January 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 83-2525,83-2525 |
| Parties | Edward Linn HEARTFIELD, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Sharon Mary HEARTFIELD, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit) |
Michael D. Matheny, Beaumont, Tex., for defendant-appellant.
Orgain, Bell & Tucker, Gilbert I. Low, Everett B. Lord, Beaumont, Tex., for plaintiff-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
Before POLITZ, WILLIAMS and GARWOOD, Circuit Judges.
This case involves court orders regarding child support obligations and visitation rights under a divorce decree originally issued by the Texas court. The father, appellee Edward Heartfield, a resident of Texas, filed suit in the federal district court in Texas seeking an injunction restraining the mother, appellant Sharon Heartfield, now a resident of Louisiana, from litigating the child support and visitation issues in the Louisiana state court. The father was successful in obtaining the injunction, and the mother appeals. We reverse; a majority of the panel finding a lack of justification for the injunction because the Louisiana court has not yet acted in conflict with the Texas court.
Sharon and Edward Heartfield were divorced by the district court of Jefferson County, Texas, in 1979. Appellant Sharon Heartfield was made managing conservator of the couple's three minor children. The divorce decree required Edward to pay child support of $2,025 per month. After the divorce became final, Sharon and the three children moved to Louisiana where they have been residents for over four years. Edward continues to reside in Texas.
In June 1982, Sharon filed a complaint in the Jefferson County, Texas, district court requesting modification of child support. In response, Edward filed a cross-action seeking increased visitation, a reduction in child support payments, and a motion to transfer the case to Hardin County, Texas. The case was transferred to the Hardin County district court pursuant to Edward's motion.
Sharon then petitioned the civil district court of Orleans Parish, Louisiana, to make the original Texas judgment executory. The Louisiana court made the Texas judgment executory by order entered November 17, 1982. Sharon then filed a motion in the Hardin County court to have the action dismissed or transferred to Orleans Parish. This motion was denied on January 20, 1983. Approximately one month later, on February 22, 1983, the Hardin County district court, after a trial, modified the original divorce decree by reducing Edward's child support payments to $1,800 a month. The court's judgment also made the payment of child support contingent upon specific visitation rights.
On April 6 and 27, 1983, Edward filed affidavits in the district court of Hardin County, alleging that visitation had been denied and that child support payments therefore were being withheld. Meanwhile, Sharon filed a motion in the Louisiana state court seeking to hold Edward in contempt of court for failing to pay child support under the original Texas divorce decree, although the decree had been modified by the Hardin County district court.
Since conflicting positions were being taken by litigants in the Louisiana and Texas courts, Edward filed a motion for a temporary injunction in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Beaumont Division, seeking to restrain Sharon from proceeding on her claims in the Louisiana state court. After the initial hearing in federal court, Sharon dropped her Louisiana state court claims regarding child support and to hold appellee in contempt of court. She limited her claim to that of visitation, alleging that the visitation plan as it exists is unworkable and a threat to the well-being of the children.
On July 1, 1983, the federal district court granted a temporary injunction prohibiting Sharon, the appellant, from continuing her litigation in the Louisiana state court. On appeal, appellant presents two grounds of error:
(1) that the district court erred in exercising jurisdiction in this matter;
(2) that the district court abused its discretion and committed reversible error in issuing a temporary injunction restraining appellant from litigating her claim in Louisiana state court.
We address each contention in turn.
Appellee Edward Heartfield maintains that the district court had two separate bases of jurisdiction:
(1) Federal question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1331 based upon the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (PKPA), 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1738A.
(2) Diversity of citizenship and amount in controversy jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1332.
In order to decide whether the district court had federal question jurisdiction under Sec. 1331, we must first determine whether federal district courts have jurisdiction to enforce compliance with the provisions of the PKPA. This is a question of first impression in this circuit.
In Flood v. Braaten, 727 F.2d 303 (3rd Cir.1984), the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit answered this question in the affirmative. In Braaten, the federal court was faced with a situation where a New Jersey state court had awarded custody of children to the mother, while a North Dakota state court had awarded custody to the father. Each court refused to enforce the custody decree of the other. The mother brought an action in the United States District Court to enforce the New Jersey custody decree. The district court dismissed the complaint for want of jurisdiction. In vacating the district court's order of dismissal, the circuit court acknowledged that the federal courts have traditionally avoided involvement in child custody disputes in matters brought to federal court under diversity jurisdiction. The court concluded, however, that the general rule of abstention in custody matters does not foreclose a federal court from exercising its power to enforce compliance with 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1738A, the PKPA.
The PKPA is entitled "Full faith and credit given to child custody determinations." 1 The Act provides:
(a) The appropriate authorities of every State shall enforce according to its terms ... any child custody determination made consistently with the provisions of this section by a court of another state.
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(g) A court of a State shall not exercise jurisdiction in any proceeding for a custody determination commenced during the pendency of a proceeding in a court of another State where such court of that other State is exercising jurisdiction consistently with the provisions of this section to make a custody determination.
The Act imposes a duty upon the state courts to enforce child custody determinations which have been made by another state in accordance with the terms of Sec. 1738A. The Act, at the same time, gives a parent a right to have a valid custody determination made by one state enforced in other states. As the Braaten court pointed out, this right would be substantially abridged if no means existed for forcing a noncomplying state to abide by the terms of the Act.
In the case at bar, both the Texas court and the Louisiana court asserted jurisdiction over the child support and visitation provisions of the original decree. The Texas court reduced the original child support payments to $1,800 per month and made Edward's duty to pay child support contingent upon Sharon's compliance with the visitation provision. The Louisiana court, meanwhile, had made executory the original Texas judgment, which provided for child support of $2,025 per month. Sharon had filed in the Louisiana state court seeking to hold Edward in contempt of court for failing to pay child support under the original Texas divorce decree, although the decree had been modified by the Texas court. We emphasize, however, that the Louisiana court had not acted upon Sharon's motion.
When the courts of two states assert that they have jurisdiction over a custody determination, it is clear that Congress' purpose in enacting the Act would be thwarted without some means of determining which state has the right to exercise its jurisdiction under the terms of the Act. We agree with the Braaten court that Congress could not have "intended to render Sec. 1738A virtually nugatory by so restricting the availability of a federal forum that state compliance with the legislation would become optional." 727 F.2d at 312.
Hence, we conclude that in situations such as this, where courts of two different states assert jurisdiction over a custody determination, federal district court intervention is proper and in fact necessary to enforce compliance with Sec. 1738A. The district court was correct in exercising federal question jurisdiction.
Because we decide that the district court had federal question jurisdiction based upon the PKPA, we need not decide whether the court also had diversity jurisdiction over this matter.
Having concluded that the district court properly had jurisdiction under the PKPA to resolve the dispute stemming from the conflicting orders issued by the Texas and Louisiana state courts, we must next decide whether the district court was correct in holding that the Texas court has continuing jurisdiction over the visitation and child support provisions of the divorce decree.
The operative provisions of the PKPA dictate when a state may enforce or modify its own decrees and when a state may modify or must enforce the decrees of another state. Subsection (c) of the Act sets out requirements as to when a state may make the initial custody determination. There is no allegation that Texas did not have jurisdiction to make the initial custody determination at the time the parties were divorced.
We are concerned here with subsection (d), which determines when a state court which has made a child custody determination consistent with the Act continues to have jurisdiction over the order. This...
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