The Oklahoma Bar Journal January 2026

jurisdiction, although the official comment does say so. 11 However, the official comment cannot over ride the state constitution. Section 551-201 can probably, at best, be thought of as a limitation on the ability of the court to exercise its full power under its subject matter juris diction or a legislative limitation on the ability of the court to exercise its full jurisdictional power. The problem of In re N.A . has come up in other states besides Oklahoma. 12 The question really becomes what the effect of these cases, like In re N.A ., is on the UCCJEA. As a matter of interstate enforcement of interstate custody determinations, the effect of these cases should be minimal. While it is true in Oklahoma that, as a matter of state constitutional law, a state statute cannot limit the constitutionally conferred grant of judicial power on state trial courts, the Legislature can surely legislate concerning the effect in its state of foreign judgments. The UCCJEA attempts to eliminate the problems of the interstate child by limiting both jurisdiction in state courts and by limiting the enforcement of custody determi nations to those made in accor dance with its jurisdictional bases. The first is the attempted solution undermined by N.A. The second, however, resolves the problem of determining the effect of interstate custody determinations, even if it does nothing to affect the issue of intrastate jurisdiction. The UCCJEA was written as a revision of the UCCJA. As such, it was stuck with much of the lan guage of the original act, includ ing the jurisdictional language of ENFORCEMENT OF JUDGMENTS

state courts. It certainly would have been much easier if the authors, in drafting the UCCJA, had written something like this:

concerned, the UCCJEA is not really concerned with whether the subsid iary issues associated with subject matter jurisdiction are followed or not. By this, I mean questions like whether UCCJEA jurisdiction can be raised for the first time on appeal and whether the provisions of the UCCJEA can be waived. However, for interstate enforcement, Section 551-301 of the UCCJEA uses the jurisdictional bases of Section 551 201 to determine which custody determinations made in one state are enforceable in other states and which are not. Cases based on status juris diction leave it open to the indi vidual states to determine which judgments from other states they will recognize, even if the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution does not require recognition. In May v. Anderson , 14 Justice Frankfurter’s concurrence was to the effect that even though the full faith and credit clause did not require Ohio’s recognition of Wisconsin’s custody decree, Ohio could recognize it if it wished. Professor Bodenheimer built the

Section 1

1. A court has authority to make a child-custody determination only if: a. A determination

made in violation of Section 1 can be collaterally attacked at any time.

Nobody would have a problem with this. Unfortunately, they used the word “jurisdiction.” Since they could not possibly be using the word in terms of “personal juris diction,” courts assumed they were talking about “subject matter” juris diction. They should have invented another term since, as Barbara Atwood warned us long ago, 13 the importation of the rules on subject matter jurisdiction could only, in the long run, create confusion. And that is what has finally happened. As far as interstate enforcement of custody determinations is

Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff.

12 | JANUARY 2026

THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL