## Facts

- Chris Henson and Gina Henson (now known as Gina Noel Bish) divorced in Kansas in 1991, when they lived in Kansas with their three children.
- The Kansas district court awarded Gina primary custody and ordered Chris to pay child support ($226 per month, later increased to $300) and 50% of the children’s medical expenses.
- Chris later moved to California. After Gina learned of the move in 1994, she initiated an interstate support action under the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (URESA), which California still used at the time.
- In 1995, Kansas replaced URESA with the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA), reflecting the “one-order” model for interstate child-support jurisdiction and enforcement.
- The Kansas support order was registered in California, and California issued its own order in the enforcement proceeding.
- In 1996, at Gina’s request, a California court increased Chris’s monthly child-support obligation to $948.
- By 2002, Chris had moved again, this time to Colorado, without notice, and he made only semi-regular support payments.
- In 2005, the Kansas court found Chris in default and entered a judgment for child-support and medical-expense arrearages exceeding $70,000, using arrearage calculations that relied on the 1996 California increase.
- Chris later challenged Kansas rulings that treated the California increase and the resulting Kansas arrearage amounts as valid, arguing that the Full Faith and Credit for Child Support Orders Act (FFCCSOA) barred California from modifying the Kansas order and that the Kansas determinations resting on the California modification could not stand.

## Issues

1. Under FFCCSOA’s continuing, exclusive jurisdiction rules, did California have subject-matter jurisdiction in 1996 to modify the 1991 Kansas child-support order?
2. If California lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, were the Kansas district court’s arrearage and related enforcement rulings that depended on the California modification invalid and subject to reversal?

## Decision

- The Kansas Court of Appeals reversed and remanded.
- The court held that, under FFCCSOA’s one-order scheme, Kansas retained continuing, exclusive jurisdiction to modify its 1991 support order because Gina remained in Kansas and the statutory conditions for another state to assume modification jurisdiction were not met.
- The court held that California could enforce the Kansas order after registration but lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to modify it; therefore, the 1996 California increase was void.
- Because the Kansas district court’s arrearage determinations and related enforcement rulings used amounts derived from the void California modification, those Kansas rulings could not stand and required reconsideration using only valid support obligations.

## Legal Principles

- Under FFCCSOA (28 U.S.C. § 1738B), the issuing state keeps continuing, exclusive jurisdiction to modify a child-support order as long as the child or any party remains a resident of the issuing state, unless statutory requirements for transfer of modification jurisdiction are satisfied.
- A responding state may register and enforce an out-of-state support order, but enforcement authority does not itself authorize a modification that conflicts with FFCCSOA’s jurisdiction limits.
- Federal law governs interstate recognition and modification of child-support orders; a state procedure (including URESA-based proceedings) cannot be used to create a competing modification when FFCCSOA bars it.
- A judgment entered without subject-matter jurisdiction is void, may be attacked even after significant time has passed, and cannot serve as a valid basis for later calculations or enforcement orders that depend on it.

## Conclusion

In *Matter of Henson*, the Kansas Court of Appeals held that FFCCSOA left Kansas with continuing, exclusive jurisdiction over the parties’ 1991 child-support order, so California’s 1996 attempt to increase support was void; because Kansas arrearage and related enforcement rulings relied on that void modification, the appellate court reversed and remanded for recalculation and further proceedings based on valid Kansas orders.


Matter of Henson, 464 P.3d 963 (2020)