The international family law statute UIFSA is in the news after a U.S. court is asked to enforce a Canadian foreign support order on the father’s home ice of Pennsylvania. Whether the Pennsylvania family court can recognize and enforce an international support order under the Hague Convention is at issue.

Power Play

The Mother and Father married in May 2012, and lived together in Toronto, Canada. They had two children, born in July 2013 and May 2014. Both children have special needs. The parties separated about five years later, and the father, a self-employed attorney, returned to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he maintained his law practice. Mother remained in Ontario with the children.

In June 2018, the Father filed for divorce and custody in Ontario. The Ontario court entered the parties’ divorce order after the parties reached an agreement over custody. Father maintained an apartment in Ontario and traveled there every other weekend to exercise parenting time.

The parties couldn’t settle child support, including extraordinary expenses that included private-school tuition and fees, camps, medical and prescription expenses, and therapies for their special needs children.

In 2021, the Mother asked the Ontario court to calculate child support and also sought to relocate with the children to Texas for work. The father agreed and also agreed that the Ontario court would retain jurisdiction to decide child support.

In June 2022, the father objected to Ontario continuing to exercise jurisdiction because Mother and the children were then living in Texas, but later that year she returned to Ontario, and the court entered a final judgment requiring him to pay $4,393 per month in child support and over $264,000 in arrears and retroactive support.

In 2024, Mother sought recognition and enforcement of the Ontario judgment in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania court entered an ex parte registration which the father argued was “manifestly incompatible with public policy.” The Father then appealed.

Florida Hague Convention and UIFSA

I will be speaking on international custody, UIFSA and the Hague Convention and at the 2027 Marital & Family Law Review Course in Orlando from January 22-23, 2027.

Florida, like Pennsylvania, enacted UIFSA, including the provisions implementing the 2007 Hague Child Support Convention. Under UIFSA, a court generally shall recognize and enforce a registered support order from a Convention country unless one of the specifically enumerated grounds for refusing recognition exists.

Some of the exceptions include lack of personal jurisdiction; fraud relating to procedure; incompatibility with another controlling support order; payment, lack of proper notice or opportunity to be heard, and recognition being “manifestly incompatible with public policy,” including a failure to satisfy minimum standards of due process.

Breakaway

On appeal, Father argued that because he lived in Pennsylvania, Mother should have been required to commence an the case in Pennsylvania and calculate support under Pennsylvania law. The court rejected that argument finding UIFSA does not require every international support case be litigated in the payor’s home jurisdiction if the foreign court has jurisdiction.

Importantly, the appellate court recognized that foreign countries permit child-support jurisdiction based on the residence of the child or support obligee while here we focus on personal jurisdiction over the obligor.

Accordingly, a U.S. court can examine whether facts existed that would satisfy the jurisdictional bases contained in UIFSA’s long-arm provision — even if the foreign judge did not conduct a minimum contacts analysis as long as an independent basis for jurisdiction under UIFSA existed.

Finally, the Father argued that in the U.S., most courts calculate child support on the “income shares” model, where both parents’ incomes are considered in determining the child support. But in Ontario, support is determined primarily by the obligor’s income. The court held that this difference did not establish a public policy violation.

The appellate opinion is here.