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Indiana Law - Which State's Court Will Hear the Case? Indiana follows the Uniform Custody Act , as does every other state. Cases: Rios, 717 N.E.2d 187 (1999). In this case, the court in Indiana ultimately held that a court in Florida could decide custody. The couple had spent time in Texas, Florida, and Indiana, and there were at various times proceedings in all three states. The couple married in June, 1987, in Florida. They lived there until September, 1992, when they moved to Indiana with their two children. In 1993, first the father, then (four months later) the mother, moved to Texas. In 1994, the couple divorced in Texas. The Texas decree granted the father custody. The mother had moved back to Indiana before the decree was granted. Ten months later, in October 1995, the father permitted the children to move in with the mother in Indiana, and the father moved to Florida. The next summer, in June of 1996, the mother filed for, and received an emergency custody decree in an Indiana court ("Superior Court"), which was granted on a temporary basis. The permanent hearing was postponed and apparently never occurred. The next year, in March of 1997, the mother was recovering from a hysterectomy, moving into a new apartment, and looking for a job. Probably because of all this, she allowed the children to live with their father in Florida, indending the move to last about five months, until the beginning of the school year that September. About four months into this time, in July of 1997, the father went to the Florida courts, asking them to enforce the original Texas decree that awarded him custody. The Florida courts, on a temporary basis, agreed. No final legal action was taken for the next year. At this point, the Indiana judge decided that Florida was the appropriate place to decide custody, at least for the time. This made sense (and fit under the law) because the father and both children were at that time living in Florida. A year later, in July 1998, the mother traveled to Florida and signed an agreement with the father that granted the father custody, with visitation to the mother. (The mother claimed that the father had said she would not be able to see the children unless she signed.) The very next day day after the agreement was signed, the father allowed the mother to take the children back with her to Indiana. The next week, in early August, 1998, the Florida court routinely confirmed the parties' agreement with an order awarding the father custody. Three weeks later, at the end of August, 1998, the father showed up at the kids' school, armed with the Florida custody order and accompanied by the police, and took the children back to live with him in Florida. The mother protested to the Indiana courts, but the Indiana courts concluded, ultimately, that the first Indiana court did the correct thing in deferring to the Florida court, and that the Florida court properly had the right to hear the case when it did. The Florida court was justified because Florida was the children's home and had been so for nearly 18 months by the time of the final order in August, 1998.
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