Case Update (4 March 2024): Alameda Dept Child Support v. TO; China is not a “foreign country” for purposes of enforcing its child support order
This is a fascinating international child support case (unpublished opinion) from the California Court of Appeals, First District, Second Division. It is undisputed that the parties have a Chinese child support order from 2018 that ordered the Father to pay 2,500 yuan (approximately $347). The order is final after an appeal affirming it. After the order was entered, the Mother and child moved to Michigan and then New Jersey, and the Father moved from Nevada to an existing property in Alameda County, California. In other words, both parents and the child lived in different U.S. states at the time of the California suit. On November 30, 2020, the title IV-D agency in Alameda County filed a complaint against the Father to establish child support (not modify it or enforce the Chinese order). He was personally served in California on March 16, 2021. He then fought subject matter and personal jurisdiction.
The subject matter jurisdiction arguments revolved around the fact that there is this existing final child support order from China. Presumably if there is an existing order, or so the Father argues, it should be enforced. This comes down to the definition of “foreign country” in the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, as it is enacted in California, and whether China is considered a foreign country so that its child support order can (and should) be enforced. The definition is found in CA Fam Code § 5700.102 (2022). The definition of a foreign country is broken down into 3 categories: (1) if it is a foreign reciprocating country with the United States (check the HHS Intergovernmental Reference Guide to know); (2) if it is a Convention Partner with the U.S. under the Hague Maintenance Convention; or, (3) it has enacted a law or established a procedure for the issuance and enforcement of support orders which is substantially similar to the procedures in UIFSA. The trial court concluded that China did not fall into any of the 3 categories, it is not a “foreign country”, its order was not entitled to enforcement, and therefore, California could establish (so long as it had personal jurisdiction) a new child support order. [Separately, the court concluded that it had personal jurisdiction: the Father was served in California, filed a responsive pleading, and had sufficient minimum contacts in Alameda County from his real estate holdings].
On appeal, the third category may have been the only cognizable argument that China was a foreign country, whose support order should be enforced (although no party sought its registration), but “no party presented any evidence that China ‘has enacted a law or established procedures for the issuance and enforcement of support orders which are substantially similar to the procedures under [the UIFSA].’” The Father then argued that the title IV-D agency in California apparently decided to “enforce the Chinese support order in March 2020” and therefore that should require the trial court in California to also enforce the order. It would otherwise lead to inconsistencies. The Court of Appeals took this argument to be one of judicial estoppel, preventing a party from asserting a position contrary to or inconsistent with a prior asserted position. While the Court of Appeals doubted that the Father preserved this argument on appeal, it addressed it. The Court of Appeals concluded that the requirements of a judicial estoppel argument were not met, specifically: there was no indication that the title IV-D agency asserted its position in a judicial or quasi-judicial administrative proceeding and therefore no tribunal had accepted that position as true.
The rest of the opinion related to the evidence as to the parents’ incomes, their credibility, etc. But, the jurisdictional component of the opinion underscores the importance of that first step in analyzing a foreign child support order - into what category that country falls. It is also clear that consulting with foreign counsel becomes critical to the analysis here.
