Uniform Comment

This is a new section addressing continuing jurisdiction. Continuing jurisdiction was not specifically addressed in the UCCJA. Its absence caused considerable confusion, particularly because the PKPA, § 1738(d), requires other States to give Full Faith and Credit to custody determinations made by the original decree State pursuant to the decree State's continuing jurisdiction so long as that State has jurisdiction under its own law and remains the residence of the child or any contestant.

This section provides the rules of continuing jurisdiction and borrows from UIFSA as well as recent UCCJA case law. The continuing jurisdiction of the original decree State is exclusive. It continues until one of two events occurs:

1. If a parent or a person acting as a parent remains in the original decree State, continuing jurisdiction is lost when neither the child, the child and a parent, nor the child and a person acting as a parent continue to have a significant connection with the original decree State and there is no longer substantial evidence concerning the child's care, protection, training and personal relations in that State. In other words, even if the child has acquired a new home State, the original decree State retains exclusive, continuing jurisdiction, so long as the general requisites of the "substantial connection" jurisdiction provisions of Section 201 [Me. cite section 1745] are met. If the relationship between the child and the person remaining in the State with exclusive, continuing jurisdiction becomes so attenuated that the court could no longer find significant connections and substantial evidence, jurisdiction would no longer exist.

The use of the phrase "a court of this State" under subsection (a)(1) [Me. cite subsection 1, paragraph A] makes it clear that the original decree State is the sole determinant of whether jurisdiction continues. A party seeking to modify a custody determination must obtain an order from the original decree State stating that it no longer has jurisdiction.

2. Continuing jurisdiction is lost when the child, the child's parents, and any person acting as a parent no longer reside in the original decree State. The exact language of subparagraph (a)(2) [Me. cite subsection 1, paragraph B] was the subject of considerable debate. Ultimately the Conference