If you've ever attempted to complete any type of child custody or parenting plan documents in Washington, you have undoubtedly encountered the sections on the petition that deal with "jurisdiction over the child". If you are like most people, these sections of the paperwork can be overwhelming and somewhat intimidating. Things become even more confusing when you are dealing with a child support issue and a child custody issue. I'll need more than one article to effectively discuss all of the elements of Washington child custody jurisdiction, but for now I'll try to cover the most important aspects.

The different types of jurisdiction

One of the most important things to remember when taking care of a legal matter involving the custody or parenting of a child is that child custody jurisdiction is different from the other types of jurisdiction. For example, child support cases initially require you to have the other party personally served with the paperwork. This means that someone over the age of eighteen and not a party to the action must personally deliver the paperwork. This type of service is necessary to establish a specific type of jurisdiction known as personal jurisdiction. Washington courts must have personal jurisdiction over a person before they can make a money judgment.

The personal jurisdiction portion of paperwork is usually the jurisdiction section that you will encounter first. The next jurisdiction issue will deal with jurisdiction over the child. The rest of this text will be devoted to the court's jurisdiction over the child.

About the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act (UCCJEA)

The UCCJEA is the child custody law. Just about every state has some version of the UCCJEA. Washington's version of this law is known as RCW 26.27.201 et seq. For routine child custody issues in Washington, you probably don't need to know too much about the UCCJEA. However, you do need to know about the type of jurisdiction that Washington needs to make child custody determinations.

Subject Matter Jurisdiction for Child Custody Issues

Put very simply, subject matter jurisdiction is the only type of jurisdiction required for Washington Courts to make child custody determinations. Many people do not understand this concept, yet it is extremely important for child custody cases.

When do you need to worry about jurisdiction

You should be thinking about jurisdiction before you do anything further in your case. You have to ask yourself, "What type of jurisdiction is necessary for this case" and then you have to find appropriate methods to obtain the proper jurisdiction. For example, if your case requires personal jurisdiction, you would obtain that by having the other party personally served with the paperwork.

Stay tuned for part 2