Case Update (7 Aug 2024): Meador v. Lu; Parties cannot consent to Subject Matter Jurisdiction; if an order was entered when there was a lack of SMJ, it must be vacated
This case is on appeal before the Court of Appeals of Iowa, which issued its opinion on August 7, 2024. The appeal stemmed from a trial court order from 2020 related to a minor child’s custody, entered by the court, but then vacated.
The parties are the parents of the minor child at issue, were married in China in 2013, and then divorced in China in 2018. Their divorce decree granted the Mother primary residential custody (“foster the parties’ child”) and the Father visitation rights. The child was then physically in Iowa in 2020 with the child’s paternal grandparents. The Mother was residing in China and the Father in Taiwan. While the child was in Iowa, the Father filed a petition for custody and visitation in Iowa, stated that he had not participated in any capacity in any other litigation related to the child’s custody, and claimed Iowa to be the home state of the child. The Mother defended, arguing the existing Chinese decree. A few months after filing, the Father filed a “stipulated agreement” that gave the parties’ joint legal custody of the child and the Father physical care. The Iowa trial court approved it and, then, the Mother filed a motion to vacate the order. At the motion to vacate hearing, the court asked the Father’s attorney how the court had subject matter jurisdiction. The attorney “conceded that the trial court that entered the original stipulation did not have jurisdiction at that time” but then argued that the dispositive issue was that the “parties … consented to the jurisdiction at that time.”
At its best, the Iowa case was a modification of an existing foreign child custody order (entered in substantial conformity with the UCCJEA), and, therefore, the Iowa court had no subject matter jurisdiction because it was required to defer to China’s continuing exclusive jurisdiction over its own order. However, the Iowa court examined its subject matter jurisdiction under the portion of the UCCJEA related to initial (as opposed to modified) child custody orders, and concluded that the child was living with her paternal grandparents, that they were not persons acting as a parent, and therefore, Iowa had no subject matter jurisdiction as it was not the child’s home state.
Regardless, because both parties conceded that the trial court (for whatever reason), at the time it entered its order, had no subject matter jurisdiction, the Court of Appeals only needed to examine whether jurisdiction could be conferred by consent. The court properly concluded that subject matter jurisdiction is not discretionary and cannot be waived by the parties or court. Therefore, the decree had to be vacated. The Court of Appeals agreed, and affirmed. A decree entered absent subject matter jurisdiction must be vacated. One cannot consent to subject matter jurisdiction.
