Rule 3.214.Actions Under Uniform Acts

Support and custody orders cross state lines, and three uniform acts handle what happens when they do. MCR 3.214 sits on top of those acts. Its premise, in subrule (A), is that these cases are ordinary civil actions, governed by the rules that govern everything else, except where the acts themselves or this rule say otherwise. The rest of the rule supplies those exceptions.

Which acts

Subrule (A) names three: the Revised Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act, MCL 780.151 et seq.; the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, MCL 552.2101 et seq.; and the Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, MCL 722.1101 et seq. The rule then addresses each in turn, with the most detail reserved for the first.

Keeping RURESA orders with the original court

Subrule (B) is built around one idea: where a Michigan court has already issued a valid support order, that court should hold the case. Subrule (B)(1) takes the definition of a support order from MCL 780.153b(8).

• Under (B)(2)(a), when a Michigan court initiates a RURESA action and a prior valid support order exists in another Michigan court, the initiating court transfers to that court any RURESA order entered in a responding state, and tells the responding court about the transfer.
• Under (B)(2)(b), when another state initiates and a prior valid Michigan support order exists, the responsive proceeding belongs in the court that issued that order. If it is commenced elsewhere in Michigan by mistake and a RURESA order enters, that court, on learning of the error, transfers the order to the issuing court and informs the initiating court.
• Under (B)(2)(c), the transferring court sends all pertinent records. The clerk and the friend of the court prepare them in accordance with the transfer order and the Michigan Trial Court Records Management Standards, and send them by a secure method within one business day of the date of the transfer order.
• Under (B)(2)(d), the friend of the court office that issued the prior valid support order receives and immediately disburses all payments from the obligor or from a responding state.

Notices and registration

Subrule (C) gives the friend of the court office a single administrative job in UIFSA cases: it sends all notices and copies of orders that the tribunal is required to send under MCL 552.2101 et seq. Subrule (D) turns to the UCCJEA, where a child custody determination made by another state's court is registered and enforced under the procedure in MCL 722.1304. The subrule adds one line of its own: there is no fee for the registration of such a determination. Putting another state's custody order on file in Michigan costs nothing.