§ 19-11-110.Jurisdiction

A court can’t order a person to pay support unless it has personal jurisdiction over that person. This section is the interstate support act’s long-arm statute: it says when a Georgia tribunal may reach a nonresident, or the nonresident’s guardian or conservator, in a proceeding to establish or enforce a support order or to determine a child’s parentage.

Subsection (a) lists eight bases. The person was personally served with process in Georgia. The person submitted to Georgia’s jurisdiction by consent, by entering a general appearance, or by filing a responsive document that waives any contest to personal jurisdiction. The person lived with the child in Georgia. The person lived in Georgia and paid prenatal expenses or support for the child. The child lives in Georgia because of the person’s acts or directives. The person had sexual intercourse in Georgia and the child may have been conceived by that act. The person asserted parentage in the putative father registry the Department of Human Services keeps in Georgia. Or any other basis consistent with the Georgia and United States Constitutions supports jurisdiction. Any one is enough, and the tribunal “may” use it.

Subsection (b) draws a line around modification. Neither these bases nor any other Georgia law can be used to get personal jurisdiction to modify another state’s child support order unless the requirements of Code Section 19-11-170 are met. For a foreign support order, the requirements of Code Section 19-11-174 must be met instead. In other words, reaching the other parent is not the same as having power to change someone else’s order.

Once acquired, Georgia’s personal jurisdiction lasts as Code Section 19-11-111 describes. When Georgia has jurisdiction over a nonresident, Code Section 19-11-119 lets it hear the case under Georgia law while using the act’s tools for out-of-state evidence. The section was amended in 2009 and 2013.