O.C.G.A.
O.C.G.A.

O.C.G.A. § 19-9-85 (2019)

Registering foreign custody determinations; requirements of registering court; contesting registration; confirmation of registered order

✓ O.C.G.A. — 2019 edition (Public.Resource.Org Release 73)
Code text and O.C.G.A. statutory annotations on this page reflect the 2019 Official Code of Georgia Annotated (Public.Resource.Org Release 73, 2019-08-21; public domain per Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). The Syfert case-law annotations in Notes of Decisions, below, are current.
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(a) A child custody determination issued by a court of another state may be registered in this state, with or without a simultaneous request for enforcement, by sending to the superior court in the appropriate venue in this state:

(1) A letter or other document requesting registration;

(2) Two copies, including one certified copy, of the determination sought to be registered, and a statement under penalty of perjury that to the best of the knowledge and belief of the person seeking registration the order has not been modified; and

(3) Except as otherwise provided in Code Section 19-9-69, the name and address of the person seeking registration and any parent or person acting as a parent who has been awarded custody or visitation in the child custody determination sought to be registered.

(b) On receipt of the documents required by subsection (a) of this Code section, the registering court shall:

(1) Cause the determination to be filed as a foreign judgment, together with one copy of any accompanying documents and information, regardless of their form; and

(2) Serve notice upon the persons named pursuant to paragraph (3) of subsection (a) of this Code section and provide them with an opportunity to contest the registration in accordance with this Code section.

(c) The notice required by paragraph (2) of subsection (b) of this Code section must state that:

(1) A registered determination is enforceable as of the date of the registration in the same manner as a determination issued by a court of this state;

(2) A hearing to contest the validity of the registered determination must be requested within 20 days after service of notice; and

(3) Failure to contest the registration will result in confirmation of the child custody determination and preclude further contest of that determination with respect to any matter that could have been asserted.

(d) A person seeking to contest the validity of a registered order must request a hearing within 20 days after service of the notice. At that hearing, the court shall confirm the registered order unless the person contesting registration establishes that:

(1) The issuing court did not have jurisdiction under Part 2 of this article;

(2) The child custody determination sought to be registered has been vacated, stayed, or modified by a court having jurisdiction to do so under Part 2 of this article; or

(3) The person contesting registration was entitled to notice, but notice was not given in accordance with the standards of Code Section 19-9-47 in the proceedings before the court that issued the order for which registration is sought.

(e) If a timely request for a hearing to contest the validity of the registration is not made, the registration is confirmed as a matter of law, and the person requesting registration and all persons served must be notified of the confirmation.

(f) Confirmation of a registered order, whether by operation of law or after notice and hearing, precludes further contest of the order with respect to any matter that could have been asserted at the time of registration.

History

Code 1981, § 19-9-85, enacted by Ga. L. 2001, p. 129, § 1.

Annotations

JUDICIAL DECISIONS Registration not a prerequisite to modification. - In a Georgia action to modify an Alaska child custody determination, although the Alaska judgment was not registered, the plain language of O.C.G.A. §§ 19-9-85 and 19-9-86 did not require that the Alaska custody determination be registered before it was modifi-

able. Lopez v. Olson, 314 Ga. App. 533, 724 S.E.2d 837, 2012 Ga. App. LEXIS 228 (2012). Registration of foreign decree not required for enforcement. - Indiana father was not entitled to mandatory notice of registration of an Indiana child custody decree under O.C.G.A. § 19-9-85

of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, O.C.G.A. § 19-9-40 et seq., before enforcement of the decree in Georgia because the enforcement remedies were cumulative, O.C.G.A. § 19-983(b), and the mother sought enforcement under § 19-9-83 and O.C.G.A. § 19-9-88. Ward v. Smith, 334 Ga. App. 876, 780 S.E.2d 702, 2015 Ga. App. LEXIS 742 (2015). Confirmation of improperly registered decree error. - Because the wife’s petition to domesticate a Tennessee

divorce decree did not contain two copies of the decree, but only a certified copy, it was therefore not a registered order and the superior court erred by automatically confirming the registration of the decree based on the husband’s failure to request a hearing; instead, the superior court should have treated the filing merely as a petition to domesticate the Tennessee decree. Kerr v. Wilson, 359 Ga. App. 111, 854 S.E.2d 777, 2021 Ga. App. LEXIS 87 (2021).

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 5 cases (2 in the last 5 years), 2012–2022 · leading case: Lopez v. Olson, 724 S.E.2d 837 (Ga. Ct. App. 2012).
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Lopez v. Olson, 724 S.E.2d 837 (Ga. Ct. App. 2012). · cites it 8× “Under “Part 3” of the UCCJEA captioned “Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Foreign Decrees,” OCGA § 19-9-85 provides for registration, contesting, and confirmation of foreign custody determinations as follows: (a) A child custody determination issued by a court of another state may…”
Ward v. Smith, 780 S.E.2d 702 (Ga. Ct. App. 2015). · cites it 18× “Ward contends that he was not given proper mandatory notice of registration in accordance with OCGA § 19-9-85 of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA).”
Andrew Rufus Makin v. Katherine Elizabeth Ann Davis (Ga. Ct. App. 2022). · cites it 16× “OCGA § 19-9-85 (a) provides that a child custody determination issued by a court of another state may be registered in this state when the person seeking registration follows certain procedures.”
Jonathan Kerr v. Stacey Wilson (Ga. Ct. App. 2021). · cites it 16× “Kerr argues that the superior court erred by (1) confirming the Tennessee divorce decree based on his failure to request a hearing pursuant to OCGA § 19-9-85 (d) and (2) failing to afford full faith and credit to the terms of the confirmed Tennessee divorce decree.”
Tarvella Razi v. Shalonda Burns (Ga. Ct. App. 2020). · cites it 2× “OCGA § 19-9-85 (recognizing that a child custody orders from foreign courts “may” be registered in this state).”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.