Which Court to Go to When California Child Custody and Visitation is on the Line

What happens when the parties to a case – the parents as well as the child- move out of California before the court is finished ruling on a child custody and visitation matter? Under the Uniform Child Custody Visitation and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA), specifically Family Code section 3422, if California has jurisdiction over a child custody dispute, it continues to have jurisdiction until “neither the child, nor the child and one parent, nor the child and a person acting as a parent have a significant connection with this state and that substantial evidence is no longer available in this state concerning the child’s care, protection, training, and personal relationships” or “[a] court of this state or a court of another state determines that the child, the child’s parents, and any person acting as a parent do not presently reside in this state”.

It was this second clause –where nobody involved in the case lives in California anymore – that triggered the recent decision in the California Court of Appeal case C.T. v. Superior Court of San Francisco County (2025) 2025 DJDAR 2495.

In C.T., the appeals court concluded that even though the judge made a finding that the parents and the child all had left California, the California court still had jurisdiction because the custody and visitation dispute began before the California exodus took place.

The justices noted that the UCCJEA is ambiguous over what to do when a situation like this occurs. Accordingly, they looked to a similar body of law (The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws) and found that the comments published in the law books state that one looks at the departure from California when a modification case begins. In this case, the custody case began in 2019 and continued up through August, 2024 when the trial judge issued an order that it had “continuing jurisdiction over this case”.

It was that decision that prompted the dissatisfied father to file a writ –sort of like an emergency appeal—with the Court of Appeal, even though the trial judge had not made a final order yet. The reason for the father’s writ may have been an earlier decision in 2024 when the trial judge allowed him to relocate with the minor child to Denmark but which also ordered the mom’s request for a full custody evaluation. By June of 2024, the father and the son were already living in Denmark.

In making its decision, the C.T. justices acknowledged that their conclusion was at odds with a case out of San Diego County, namely A.M. v. Superior Court (2021) 63 Cal.App.5^th 343. But in California, intermediate appellate courts do not have to follow the outcomes of other intermediate appellate courts. (An “intermediate appellate court” is another name for the California Court of Appeal, which is higher up than the state’s trial courts but lower than the state’s Supreme Court.)  And besides, the C.T. appellate panel may have decided to keep the case in California on the theory that something was rotten in Denmark. Just kidding.

But seriously, the outcome would probably be different if a California court with jurisdiction to make an initial custody and visitation decision made such a ruling, then the parties all left the state, and then a modification request was made in California.

The decision in C.T. was unanimous – 3-0. The justices certified the case for publication, so the outcome is binding precedent on all trials courts in California.

Had the father won, he would have been free, it seems, to initiate any new custody and visitation requests in Denmark, provided that Denmark had the statutory basis to modify a California custody and visitation decree. (Foreign countries are just like additional American states when it comes to the UCCJEA.) This post does not deal with jurisdiction to make custody and visitation orders when a case first begins, but the general requirement in such a matter is that the place where the case is being filed has been the child’s home state for at least six months preceding the filing of the case.

The bottom line is to be prepared when you go to court. With something like California child custody and visitation, you do not want to be in the wrong state when you ask a judge to make a ruling in your favor. You don’t want to pay an attorney in one state to handle custody and visitation only to find out you’re in the wrong state and you have wasted a lot of money. Admittedly, in C.T., it turned out there was no place like home; the parties were in the right state – California – all along.

But this is a complicated area of law, as this post has shown, as there are two cases from the Court of Appeal level with different conclusions. To save money and grief, do it right from the beginning and make sure you have a California Certified Family Law Specialist (CFLS) on your side.