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Personal Jurisdiction and Child Support: Establishing the Parent-Child Relationship as Minimum Contacts |
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Rosemarie T. Ring |
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| In Kulko v. Superior Court of California, the United States Supreme Court held that the parent-child relationship does not constitute minimum contacts between a nonresident parent and the state in which the child re-sides in actions for child support. Rather, there must be some act of pur-poseful availment by the nonresident parent in order to sustain a state court’s assertion of personal jurisdiction. Thus, where their child’s pres-ence is the only contact with the forum state, nonresident parents may avoid a court’s jurisdiction in a child support action by simply claiming that they lack “minimum contacts” with that state. In order to address adequately the issue of personal jurisdiction in the context of child support actions, the barriers created by Kulko must be overcome. This comment proposes a two-pronged approach. First, Congress should modify the current uniform long-arm statute, enacted as part of the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, to include a provision establishing the parent-child relationship as constituting minimum contacts between a nonresident parent and the state in which the child resides. Second, the Supreme Court should uphold the states’ adoption of this long-arm statute by overruling Kulko. The Could should particularize the analytic framework for assessing minimum contacts in the context of child support actions by at last acknowledging that the rule announced in Kulko was not required by International Shoe and has proven untenable in its application. While due process may require purposeful availment when minimum contacts are based on a nonresident defendant’s activities in re-lation to the forum state, this requirement is wholly inappropriate in the context of actions for child support. The obligation to financially support one’s child does not arise out of a contractual arrangement or tortious conduct. Thus, it cannot be traced or tied to a particular state. By acknowledging the parent-child relationship as an alternate basis upon which to establish minimum contacts, the Court can finally restore com-mon sense to this area of the law. | |
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Copyright
© 1997 by California Law Review, Inc. |
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