Case Update (27 May 2025): Kiya v. Jackson; Japan is a foreign country under UIFSA for registering foreign support order

Respondent, Randy Jackson, is a professional baseball player. In 2017, Jackson met Petitioner, Masami Kiya, in Japan where he was playing for a professional team, the Hiroshima Toyo Carp. They began a romantic relationship, and their son was born in Japan in 2018. There were various lawsuits in Japan related to their son, including a child support action filed by Kiya in December 2019. Two years later, the Japanese court entered a child support judgment, ordering Jackson to pay Kiya. In or around March 2024, Jackson was in Minnesota, playing for the Twins, and residing in an apartment on a six-month lease, when Kiya registered the Japanese child support order in the courts in Minnesota under the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA). The court issued a Notice of Registration, and mailed it to Target Field, where Jackson played home games. He found the notice on April 19, 2024, and, one week later, filed to contest the validity and enforcement of the foreign child support order. He asked the Minnesota court to vacate the registration of the Japanese order because, he asserted, the Japanese order does not qualify as a “foreign support order”. He also argued that Kiya did not meet the registration requirements, and that there was a lack of personal jurisdiction over him. His argument that the Japanese support order does not qualify as a “foreign support order” was because “Japan does not have ‘substantially similar’ child support statutes with Minnesota.” The Minnesota court affirmed the registration of the Japanese child support order. Jackson appealed.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals spent several pages addressing, and dispensing with, Jackson’s argument that there was no personal jurisdiction. The more salient point for the international family law practitioner is his first argument - that the Japanese order is not a “foreign support order.” As a quick note to the reader: Japan is not a party to the Hague Child Support Convention, nor is it considered a Foreign Reciprocating Country (FRC) with the United States. The best place to get this information is on the HHS Intergovernmental Reference Guide. UIFSA permits a “foreign support order” to be registered in Minnesota for enforcement. UIFSA also defines a “foreign support order” as a “support order of a foreign tribunal.” UIFSA then defines “foreign tribunal.” It includes “a court of foreign country authorized to establish or enforce a support order.” So, what is a “foreign country”, and is Japan a “foreign country”? UIFSA also defines that. A foreign country is: (1) a FRC, (2) a country with an established reciprocal arrangement for child support, (3) a country that has enacted a law or established procedures for the issuance and enforcement of support orders which are substantially similar to the procedures in UIFSA, or (4) the Hague Child Support Convention is in force with respect to the USA. The Court of Appeals immediately eliminated #s 1, 2, and 4. The only possible option to classify Japan as a foreign country is #3. The trial court accepted an affidavit on Japanese Law, and ultimately determined that it was substantially similar. The key, as the Court of Appeals noted, is that Japan has laws and procedures for recognition and enforcement that are substantially similar to the procedures in UIFSA - it is not whether Japan has substantive support laws/calculations that are substantially similar. Further, the laws only need to be substantially similar, not identical.

The trial court is affirmed.