§ 19-9-61.Jurisdiction requirements for initial child custody determinations; physical presence alone insufficient

This is the heart of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act in Georgia. Before a Georgia court can make an initial child custody determination — the first custody order concerning a particular child, as § 19-9-41 defines it — it must find jurisdiction under one of four paragraphs. Subsection (b) makes these the exclusive basis for a Georgia custody determination. The only exception is temporary emergency jurisdiction under § 19-9-64.

Home state comes first. Under § 19-9-41, a child’s home state is the state where the child lived with a parent or a person acting as a parent for at least six consecutive months immediately before the case began, and a case begins when the first pleading is filed. For a child less than six months old, it is the state where the child has lived since birth with one of those people. Temporary absences count as part of the period. Georgia has home-state jurisdiction if it is the home state on the day the case is filed, or if it was the home state within six months before filing, the child is now gone, and a parent or person acting as a parent still lives in Georgia. That second branch keeps a left-behind parent from losing the home state the moment the other parent moves the child.

If no state is the home state, or the home state’s court has declined because Georgia is the more appropriate forum under § 19-9-67 or § 19-9-68, Georgia may act under the significant-connection test. Both parts must be met: the child and the child’s parents, or the child and at least one parent or person acting as a parent, have a significant connection with Georgia beyond mere physical presence; and substantial evidence about the child’s care, protection, training and personal relationships is available here. Paragraph (3) covers the case where every court with home-state or significant-connection jurisdiction has declined in Georgia’s favor under § 19-9-67 or § 19-9-68. Paragraph (4) is the last resort: Georgia may act if no court of any other state would have jurisdiction under the first three paragraphs.

Subsection (c) cuts both ways. A child’s or a party’s physical presence in Georgia, or personal jurisdiction over a party, is neither necessary nor sufficient. A child visiting Georgia doesn’t give Georgia power to decide custody, and a Georgia court with home-state jurisdiction can decide custody even if the other parent has never been here, so long as that parent gets notice and a chance to be heard under §§ 19-9-47 and 19-9-65. Other sections can still stop a court that has jurisdiction: § 19-9-66 (a case filed first elsewhere), § 19-9-67 (inconvenient forum) and § 19-9-68 (unjustifiable conduct). Once Georgia makes an initial determination consistent with this section, § 19-9-62 gives it exclusive, continuing jurisdiction.