USA – MASSACHUSETTS Law and Practice Contributed by: Steven E Gurdin, Barbara L Drury, Carlos A Maycotte, Stephen A MacKenzie and Kelly A Schwartz, Fitch Law Partners LLP
setts, it may be difficult to assert personal jurisdiction or to enforce a judgment or court order. A party to divorce proceedings who wants to contest jurisdiction can seek to dismiss the case by filing the appropriate pleadings in court. Those pleadings do not constitute admission of the court’s jurisdiction over the divorce and/or party. Assuming a foreign court arguably has jurisdiction over the parties and the cause of the divorce, there could be cause to not proceed with the Massachu ‑ setts divorce proceeding. For divorcing parties, jurisdiction to pursue financial orders (including, when applicable, alimony and child support) is satisfied when the jurisdictional require ‑ ments to initiate a divorce action (as outlined in 1.2 Choice of Jurisdiction in Divorce Proceedings ) are satisfied. For unwed litigants with a child, jurisdiction to pursue financial orders is available when either an adjudication on an action to establish parentage is entered or voluntary acknowledgment of parent ‑ age, pursuant to the Massachusetts Parenting Act, is established. A party can initiate a complaint for sepa ‑ rate support pursuant to Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 209C, Sections 4 and 9 and petition the court to establish a child support order for the maintenance, support and education of a child in the county where one of the parents live or, in the event neither parent lives with the child, then in the county where the child lives. If neither parent remained in Massachusetts, a litigant could potentially challenge Massachusetts’ ongo ‑ ing jurisdiction in support proceedings if the child has a new home state. Specifically, and subject to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s form of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act (UCCJEA), in determining whether Massachusetts is the child’s “home state”, the court will look to whether the child has resided with one of the parents in Mas ‑ 2. Financial Proceedings 2.1 Choice of Jurisdiction in Financial Proceedings
sachusetts for at least six consecutive months prior to the inception of litigation. The courts can hear financial claims regarding a for ‑ eign divorce upon the domestication of the foreign judgment. Domestication of the foreign judgment can be by way of litigation upon the filing of a correspond ‑ ing verified complaint seeking domestication of a for ‑ eign decree or order or, in the case of child support, by way of registration pursuant to Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 209D, which is Massachusetts’ statutory equivalent of the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA). 2.2 Service and Process in Financial Proceedings In order to properly effectuate service of process in any action commenced in a Massachusetts Probate and Family Court, service of the complaint initiating the action and the summons that is issued by the court upon the filing of said complaint must be made upon the defendant to the action. Pursuant to Mass R Dom Rel P (4)(a), the plaintiff ini ‑ tiating an action must serve the defendant by deliver ‑ ing the complaint and the summons issued by the court upon the filing of the complaint to a person duly authorised to serve process (ie, a sheriff/constable). Pursuant to the Probate and Family Court’s Standing Order 1-06 regarding the time standard for matters filed in the Probate and Family Court Department, at filing, all Probate and Family Court matters regarding complaints for separate support are assigned to an eight-month track – with the goal of disposition within the aforementioned track designation. 2.3 Division of Assets Equitable division, not equal division, is the stand ‑ ard in Massachusetts for how marital property is divided between spouses in a divorce. Marital prop ‑ erty comprises all assets held by either party at the time of divorce, whether titled jointly or individually, and regardless of when obtained. Unlike some other states, Massachusetts does not automatically des ‑ ignate certain property, such as premarital assets or inheritance, as belonging to one spouse or the other.
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