822.23.Jurisdiction to modify determination.

Section 822.23 governs when Wisconsin can change a custody determination another state made, subject to section 822.24’s emergency-jurisdiction exception. The threshold requirement applies before anything else: Wisconsin must have jurisdiction to make an initial determination under section 822.21(1)(a) or (b), the home-state or significant-connection bases.

Even meeting that threshold is not enough on its own. One of two additional triggers must also apply. Under subsection (1), the other state’s court must determine that it no longer has exclusive, continuing jurisdiction under section 822.22, or that a Wisconsin court would be a more convenient forum under section 822.27. Under subsection (2), either a Wisconsin court or the other state’s court must determine that the child, the child’s parents, and everyone acting as a parent no longer presently reside in the other state.

Together, sections 822.22 and 822.23 form two halves of the same rule: section 822.22 tells a Wisconsin court when it keeps or loses continuing jurisdiction over its own determination, and section 822.23 tells a Wisconsin court when it may step in to modify a determination the other state made. Wisconsin cannot take over modification only because it would now qualify for initial jurisdiction; the issuing state’s grip has to have loosened first.