A common family law issue involves UIFSA, in that a U.S. state can establish a child support order after proving the paternity of the father over a foreign born child. However, proof is required beyond mere admissions and agreement. Is being named on the birth certificate enough? One couple recently found out.

UIFSA Parentage

Love in Lansing

The Plaintiff lives in Brazil and is the mother of LCK, who was born in Brazil in late 2020. The purported father, who was the Defendant in the case, lives in Michigan. The case was heard in a town between Detroit and Lansing. Plaintiff contended that defendant is the father of LCK, arising out of a relationship between the parties in Michigan in January 2020.

Defendant did not deny that the parties had a relationship during that time. In August 2021, plaintiff sought child support from defendant under the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA), by filing an Application for Establishment of a Decision with the central authority in Brazil.

The application stated that defendant’s paternity of the child was “established or presumed,” and was supported by a Brazil birth certificate naming defendant as the child’s father.

The Livingston County Prosecutor initiated this action under UIFSA, filing the Application as a complaint. Defendant responded, denying paternity and requesting that the child’s paternity be established. Defendant also filed a -separate paternity action in the trial court.

In contrast to his denial of paternity in the child support case, defendant alleged in his paternity action that he is the father of LCK. In fact, the defendant earlier claimed he was the LCK’s father in the paternity action, and even signed an affidavit before the U.S. Consulate stating that he was the father.

However, in the international child support action under the UIFSA, he disputed his paternity of the child had been established under Brazil law. Plaintiff contended that defendant’s name on the child’s birth certificate established his paternity under Brazil law, precluding further inquiry into the child’s parentage under the UIFSA. Defendant disagreed, and asked the trial court to resolve the paternity action before determining the child support action. Plaintiff filed a motion to establish support, arguing without explanation that the birth certificate alone established defendant’s paternity of the child under Brazil law.

Plaintiff also asserted that while briefly visiting Brazil, defendant signed an acknowledgment of paternity at the United States Consulate to obtain a passport for the child, and sued plaintiff under the Hague Convention for abduction of the child.

Defendant did not respond to the motion, but at the hearing requested a determination of paternity under Michigan law. The trial court entered a Uniform Child Support Final Order on the basis that defendant had been established as the child’s father under Brazil law, and ordered defendant to pay plaintiff monthly child support of $1,567. The father appealed.

Florida UIFSA

I have written on international custody and support issues before. The Uniform Interstate Family Support Act is one of the uniform acts drafted by the Uniform Law Commission. First developed in 1992, UIFSA resolves interstate jurisdictional disputes about which states can properly establish and modify child support and spousal support orders.

The UIFSA also controls the issue of enforcement of family support obligations within the United States. In 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, which required all U.S. states adopt UIFSA, or face loss of federal funding for child support enforcement. Every U.S. state has adopted some version of UIFSA to resolve interstate disputes about support.

One of the more important purposes of UIFSA is to extend enforcement to foreign support orders. A court in Florida, for example, must apply UIFSA to any support proceeding involving a foreign support order from a foreign tribunal. A “foreign tribunal” means a court, administrative agency, or quasi-judicial entity of a foreign country which is authorized to establish, enforce, or modify support orders or to determine parentage of a child.

Spartan Findings

On appeal, the Defendant contended the trial court erred by determining his parentage of the child had been determined under Brazil law without permitting him to challenge the parentage of the child.

A trial court can establish child support under UIFSA only upon finding, after notice and an opportunity to be heard, that defendant had a duty of support based on the putative father’s paternity. In doing so, the trial court was obligated to apply the procedural and substantive law of Michigan.

In determining Defendant was the father based on the Brazilian birth certificate, the trial court accepted plaintiff’s contention under Brazil law, any man designated as the father on a child’s birth certificate is thereby determined by law to be the father of that child, and that defendant therefore was precluded from raising the defense of non-parentage.

However, the trial court accepted the contention that parentage had been established under Brazil law without any proof and without any authority to support plaintiff’s assertion.

Plaintiff also argued that she established paternity because of Defendant’s past claims that he was the child’s father in the paternity action, and that he even signed an affidavit before the U.S. Consulate stating that he was the child’s father.

But on appeal, the question was whether the was precluded from challenging the child’s parentage by virtue of a previous legal determination in Brazil or elsewhere. Defendant’s past assertions of parentage are not relevant to this narrow inquiry.

Even though defendant consistently sought to establish the parentage of the child, he never conceded the issue had been determined under Brazil law. The trial court’s reliance on plaintiff’s unsupported assertion that the birth certificate naming defendant as the father constituted a determination of parentage under Brazil law, was insufficient.

The trial court’s order was vacated, and the case was remanded to the trial court for further proceedings in which plaintiff must demonstrate that defendant’s parentage of the child has been determined under Brazilian law.

The Michigan Court of Appeals opinion is here.

Can someone ask a court for custody of a child if they are not the parent or legal guardian but act as the de facto parent? The Georgia Supreme Court just looked at that child custody question in weighing the constitutionality of Georgia’s Equitable Caregiver Act.

De Facto Parent

Georgia On My Mind

These days, a parent-child relationship is becoming hard to define. Cultural norms have changed, and increasingly we have embraced nontraditional families.

Imagine you and your child move in with your parents or significant other, and you rely on them to care for your child while you work. After several years, you get into a fight about parenting, move out, and limit their time with your child. Are your parents or Ex considered equal legal parents? Can a judge to decide how much visitation grandparents or your former significant other has with your child?

Roughly 38 states now recognize the concept of a “de facto parent,” where legal rights are rooted in the person’s relationship to the child as opposed to blood. And in 2019, Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the “Equitable Caregiver Act,” which gives people the right to ask for custody if they can prove they have a “permanent, unequivocal, committed and responsible parental role” for the child.

Abby Boone believed she met that description. She helped raise a young girl for the first four years of the child’s life along with her partner, Michelle Dias. The girl is a cousin of Dias, who legally adopted her in 2011. Boone was not part of that adoption, but the court noted the girl’s middle name is listed as “Boone” on the child’s new birth certificate.

The child, M.D., was born in October 2010. Michelle Dias, who adopted M.D. in March 2011, was in a romantic relationship with Abby Boone, who helped care for M.D. from six weeks old but was not a party to the adoption.

After their breakup, Boone remained involved in M.D.’s life until 2018, when Dias cut off contact. In August 2019, Boone sought “equitable caregiver” status under Georgia’s newly enacted law, which allows a non-parent to be adjudicated as a caregiver with parental rights.

The trial court found that Boone met the statutory requirements and granted her joint legal custody and visitation rights in January 2024. Dias appealed, arguing the statute was unconstitutional because it infringed on a parent’s fundamental right to the custody and control of their child.

Florida De Facto Parent

I’ve written about parental responsibility in Florida before. In Florida, “custody” is a concept we have done away with. Florida uses the parental responsibility concept. Generally, shared parental responsibility is a relationship ordered by a court in which both parents retain their full parental rights and responsibilities.

Under shared parental responsibility, parents are required to confer with each other and jointly make major decisions affecting the welfare of their child. In Florida, shared parental responsibility is the preferred relationship between parents when a marriage or a relationship ends. In fact, courts are instructed to order parents to share parental responsibility of a child unless it would be detrimental to the child.

A grandparent and a stepparent do not acquire all of the rights or assume all of the obligations of a child’s natural parent in Florida. A grandparent may be awarded some visitation rights in very limited situations, such as when the child’s parents are deceased, missing, or in a permanent vegetative state.

Florida does not have a de facto or psychological parent law like Georgia’s. Generally, timesharing and visitation rights are statutory, and the court has no inherent authority to award visitation between a child and one who is neither a parent, grandparent, nor great-grandparent. Our supreme court, citing the fundamental and constitutional right of privacy, has unequivocally reaffirmed adoptive or biological parents’ right to make decisions about their children’s welfare without interference by third parties, and the state cannot intervene into a parent’s fundamental or constitutionally protected right of privacy, either via the judicial system or legislation, absent a showing of demonstrable harm to the child.

Just Peachy

The Georgia Supreme Court declined to resolve the constitutional challenges, instead it interpreted the statute to avoid retroactive application. The Supreme Court held the statute lacked a clear legislative intent for retroactive application. Accordingly, to apply it to a pre-2019 relationship – Dias was fostering Boone’s relationship with M.D. before the statute existed – would impermissibly ascribe new legal consequences to past actions, violating due process principles.

As a result of the refusal to apply the statute retroactively, the trial court’s order was reversed because the statute could not constitutionally apply to conduct predating its enactment, and the Court vacated Boone’s equitable caregiver status and custody rights.

The Georgia Supreme Court opinion is here.

Month: March 2025

Establishing Foreign Paternity under UIFSA