The father filed a petition to establish a parent-child relationship. Then, the mother filed a motion to dismiss on the basis that Illinois did not have personal jurisdiction over her. She stated that she lived in another State and that Illinois could not have orders against her. The trial court disagreed and entered a preliminary injunction preventing the mother from removing the minor child from Illinois.
The mother, a resident of North Carolina, filed an appeal. Illinois law states that Illinois may exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident if the child resides in Illinois as a result of the acts or directives of the nonresident. The Court stated that it did not matter at all that Mother lived in another State. It did matter that the Mother left her son in Illinois.
In this case, the child came to reside in Illinois. The mother had notified the child’s paternal grandparents that she was having surgery. Mother said that she needed care for the child during her recovery. The paternal grandmother picked up the child. The grandmother to allow the minor to stay with them only on a temporary basis while Mother recovered. Mother made arrangements to pick up the minor from the grandparents in December 2013. Mother agreed to extend his time there on a temporary basis to allow Father to visit with the minor while he was in Illinois for the Christmas holiday. Father was in the military. However, she did not pick up the minor after the Christmas holiday because she said that the weather was too bad and “there was too much snow.”
The child stayed in Illinois for five and one-half months. During that time, respondent did not visit the minor at all. The mother had returned to work three days after the surgery. The mother had made no effort to retrieve her child until she was served with the father’s petition. She argues that she took no initiative to send the minor to permanently live in Illinois and made no attempt to transfer custody of the minor.
The Court added that Mother did not support her child in any way during this five and a half months that others were caring for her child. Mother should have figured out that at some point either the father or the grandmother would have been looking for some form of child support from Mother.
In re Parentage of W.J.B., 2016 IL App (2d) 140361
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