Legal Question in Family Law in Illinois
Once one state dismisses a child custody/jurisdiction case, can the other state enforce the previous ruling of the other state? I"ve read the entire UCCJEA, and found nothing that gives a judge the right to invoke an order from another state that has already been dismissed. In our case however, that is exactly what our judge is trying to do, basically telling us to find something in the UCCJEA that says's that he can't. We live in Illinois, but the case was heard in Arizona. Illinois initially gave up jurisdiction to Az, however we were not able to participate in any discussions between the two states, which is clearly in violation of the UCCJEA. A motion to reconsider was filed & accepted in Illinois, largely based on the fact that the Illinois Judge made his decision without allowing us to be heard first. Said Judge was moved from family court to civil court, handing this case to a new Judge. New judge say's that he can still invoke an order from Az, even though it has been dismissed. I disagree, but have no proof. Please help!
1 Answer from Attorneys
This is tough to answer without seeing the actual pleadings. When you say "dismissed" what do you mean? Orders are never "dismissed" but instead they can be "vacated" or they might terminate on their own depending on the language in the order. If you are saying that an AZ court vacated or "threw out" an AZ custody judgment, then whatever prior custody order existed would stand as if the AZ order never existed. When you say IL "gave up" jurisdiction to AZ, do you mean a custody order was entered in IL but then AZ became the "home state" of the child for UCCJEA purposes? I really need more info before I can address this.
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