Legal Question in Family Law in Florida
Would you please be as kind to help me answer one question?
Subject matter: personal jurisdiction
Where can I find the statue for personal jurisdiction of the court and or any case law dealing with it.
Here is what I am dealing with.
The Dept. of Revenue filed a child support modification motion in Orange county.
I have always lived in Osceola County.
When I went to court the very first time, in my response pleading, I objected to the jurisdiction of the court in writing that I lived in Osceola County. I verbally stated the same thing in open court, my objections where over ruled and the case went forward. The court registered a Foreign Support Order from the state of California and then moved to modify it.
I filed motions to Vacate, dismiss and vacate again. All being denied.
The court then on its own motion transferred the case to Osceola County. ( 1.5 years later) and at that time had made no orders other than the registration of the Foreign support Order from the state of California.
Here comes the question I am fighting,
if the court transferred the case to Osceola on its own motion it did so because it knew it did not have jurisdiction to continue the case or was in the Wrong venue. I agree. otherwise the case would have stayed in orange county.
But if the court did not have jurisdiction to continue the case or it was in the wrong venue, they never had jurisdiction to begin the case and any orders they made are VOID.
I have found this statue
CIVIL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE
47.011 Where actions may be begun.�Actions shall be brought only in the county where the defendant resides, where the cause of action accrued, or where the property in litigation is located. This section shall not apply to actions against nonresidents.
Any Attonreys out there that can ring in on this and give me a sratrting point to fight this would be great.
I also know that i can file a motion to Vacate under FL Rules OF Civ. Proc Rule 1.540 (b) (4) Inter alia
Joe
Kissimmee Fl
1 Answer from Attorneys
You're mixing up the concepts of venue and jurisdiction. Jurisdiction is whether the court has power to hear the case. Venue is where (that is, in which county) the case should be heard.
Florida appellate case law says venue for child support cases is where the alleged child support payor resides. You live in Osceola, so the case should be in Osceola.
Jurisdiction is whether the court has 1) power to hear child support cases (see chapter 61 of the statutes about that) and 2) whether the court has power over you.
To know if the court has power over you, we look in a lot of places, but we start at a United States Supreme Court Case called International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945). International Shoe basically says that (if we extrapolate), if you live in Florida, the Florida courts have jurisdiction over you for all lawsuits. That would include child support lawsuits.
So, you were wrong about your case being dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, but you were right about your case being transferred for improper venue.
Jurisdiction is proper: 1)The court has the power to hear child support cases according to Florida Statutes and 2) the court has power over you because you live in Florida.
Venue was improper, but now it is proper because the case is now in Osceola County.
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