Court Rules Husband Must Pay $60,000 in Child Support Arrears

This case involved the enforcement of a 2005 registration of a 2001 Minnesota court order for child support arrears. The Sixth District reversed a Santa Cruz County trial court in part, holding that it “lacked authority under the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act to stay the arrears owed by James because the 2001 Minnesota order at issue was registered and confirmed in California in 2005, and James did not timely challenge its registration.”

It affirmed the portion of the trial court’s order finding that the remainder of the arrears ($60,692.15) was enforceable, rejecting the husband’s arguments that the Minnesota court lacked  personal jurisdiction over him and “that the trial court in California denied him the opportunity to ‘present the full range of evidence supporting the full range of equitable relief that he was due.’”

It held that his failure to challenge jurisdiction at the time of registration of the order in California precluded him from raising the jurisdictional issue in California in 2018 and that “James cannot show any prejudice from the trial court’s failure to grant a continuance to allow him to present additional evidence because the trial court lacked authority to modify the 2001 Minnesota order.”

Read the full opinion of the court here.