§ 19-11-60.Duty of court of this state when acting as responding state

This section starts the second leg of a reciprocal support case, when a petition from another state arrives in Georgia. The trigger is receipt of the copies that § 19-11-55 describes — three copies of the petition, the initiating court’s certificate and the article. Once a Georgia court acting as the responding state receives them, it must do four things: docket the case; notify the district attorney; set a time and place for a hearing; and take whatever action Georgia law requires to obtain jurisdiction. Every step is mandatory.

The district attorney matters because § 19-11-53 authorizes the district attorney to represent the petitioner. From here the case moves through neighboring sections. If the court can’t obtain jurisdiction over the respondent or the respondent’s property, § 19-11-61 tells it to notify the initiating court, search, hold the case and, if the respondent turns up elsewhere, forward the papers. Section 19-11-62 allows discovery, § 19-11-63 lets the court order support if it finds a duty, § 19-11-64 requires a copy of the order to go back to the initiating court, and § 19-11-65 supplies tools to secure compliance. If the respondent may flee, § 19-11-57(b) lets the court obtain the respondent’s body by appropriate process.

Article 2 has taken no new petitions since January 1, 1998 (§ 19-11-40.1). Under Article 3, the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, § 19-11-124 has a Georgia responding tribunal file the petition, notify the petitioner where and when it was filed, and then choose among a list of remedies, from establishing or enforcing a support order to ordering income withholding.