Kirylik v. Kirylik
| Decision Date | 21 April 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 22726,22726 |
| Citation | 357 S.E.2d 449,292 S.C. 475 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | Michael J. KIRYLIK, Sr., Appellant, v. Alice M. KIRYLIK, Respondent. . Heard |
Jack L. Schoer, Aiken, for appellant.
Charles E. Simons, III, Aiken, for respondent.
Appellant (Father) petitioned to hold respondent (Mother) in contempt, alleging she violated a child visitation order. The family court dismissed the petition, reasoning that Delaware was the more appropriate jurisdiction in which to consider child custody matters. We affirm.
The parties were married in Delaware in 1977. They moved to Aiken so that Father could take a job as an engineer at the Savannah River Plant. Their only child, Michael, was born in 1984.
The parties separated in May 1985. Mother and the child moved to Wilmington, Delaware, to live with Mother's parents. The South Carolina Family Court granted Mother custody of the child and specified a visitation schedule for Father by an order of October 10, 1985. Thereafter, the court granted Mother a divorce on the grounds of physical cruelty and habitual drunkenness and reaffirmed its earlier custody order. Mother had the custody order registered in Delware pursuant to the terms of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (UCCJA). 13 Del.C. § 1913.
In November 1985, Mother petitioned the Delaware Family Court to assume jurisdiction to modify Father's visitation schedule. Father moved to dismiss. In an intermediate order the Delaware court held that, pursuant to the UCCJA, Delaware had become the child's "home state," and that it was in his best interests that Delaware assume jurisdiction for any modification of the visitation schedule. The record does not show the outcome of the action to modify visitation.
Thereafter, Father filed a petition in South Carolina alleging Mother twice had refused to permit him to exercise visitation. The family court, after reviewing the Delaware order, declined to exercise jurisdiction to consider contempt.
Whether the family court erred in declining to consider Father's petition to hold Mother in contempt.
Father concedes that "South Carolina might properly decline jurisdiction to Delaware concerning the modification of the custody award." See S.C.Code Ann. §§ 20-7-788 and 20-7-810 (1985). However, he distinguishes the family court's power to modify a decree from its power to enforce its prior order by contempt.
Even if a court loses jurisdiction to modify its prior orders under the UCCJA, it retains the inherent power to enforce compliance with them through civil contempt. Commw. ex rel. Taylor v. Taylor, 332 Pa.Super. 67, 480 A.2d 1188 (1984). However, we hold it was within the family court's discretion whether or not to exercise jurisdiction in this action. As noted above, the South Carolina custody order was registered in Delaware pursuant to the UCCJA. Under 13 Del.C. § 1913, which is identical to S.C.Code Ann. § 20-7-812 (1985):
(a) A certified copy of a custody decree of another state may be filed in the office of the clerk of any family court of this State. The clerk shall treat the decree in the same manner as a custody decree of the family court of this State. A custody decree so filed has the same effect and shall be enforced in like manner as a custody decree rendered by a court of this State.
(b) A person violating a custody decree of another state which makes it necessary to enforce the decree in this State may be required to pay necessary...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Marquiss v. Marquiss
...yield to the present UCCJA/PKPA home state even when the inherent power to enforce through civil contempt remains. Kirylik v. Kirylik, 292 S.C. 475, 357 S.E.2d 449 (1987). We would follow the direction delineated in Arbogast v. Arbogast, 174 W.Va. 498, 327 S.E.2d 675 (1984). That case prese......
-
Widdicombe v. Tucker-Cales
...(1985). The purpose of the UCCJA is to prevent conflicting custody decrees between different states. See Kirylik v. Kirylik, 292 S.C. 475, 477, 357 S.E.2d 449, 450 (1987). To this end, much deference is given to the jurisdiction of the state that initially rules a custody matter. "Courts wh......
-
Matthews v. Riley
...the power of courts in other states to enforce Vermont custody determinations made consistent with the PKPA. See Kirylik v. Kirylik, 292 S.C. 475, 357 S.E.2d 449, 450 (1987) (even if court loses jurisdiction under UCCJA to modify prior orders, nonetheless retains inherent power to enforce c......
-
State ex rel. Aycock v. Mowrey
...decree through modification thereof. Taylor, supra, 332 Pa.Super. at 73-75, 480 A.2d at 1190-1192. Accord Kirylik v. Kirylik (1987), 292 S.C. 475, 476-477, 357 S.E.2d 449, 450. Because our decision does not reach whether Judge Mowrey properly, and thus validly, assumed jurisdiction over the......
-
Chapter Eleven Visitation
...even if after it loses jurisdiction to modify such judgments under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act. In Kirylik v. Kirylik, 292 S.C. 475, 357 S.E.2d 449 (1987), a family court judge awarded custody to the mother and set visitation rights for the father. The mother moved to Delawar......
-
Chapter Ten Child Custody
..."home State" of the child and was the more convenient forum to decide the parent's dispute over visitation issues in Kirylik v. Kirylik, 292 S.C. 475, 357 S.E.2d 449 (1987). The mother and child moved to Delaware after the parties separated. The family court in South Carolina awarded her cu......