Custody jurisdiction: When is an absence from the home state a ‘temporary absence’?

Most people familiar with the law relating to child custody are familiar with the definition of the ‘home state’ of a child and the importance of the home state when determining whether a state has subject matter jurisdiction to make a child custody determination.

G.S. 50A-102(7) states:

“Home state” means the state in which a child lived with a parent or a person acting as a parent for at least six consecutive months immediately before the commencement of a child-custody proceeding. … A period of temporary absence of any of the mentioned persons is part of that period.” [emphasis added]

When an 11-year-old child has lived in North Carolina with her parents for her entire life but traveled to Myrtle Beach with her mother for a two-week beach vacation, it seems obvious that North Carolina will continue to be the home state of the child when mother files a custody action in North Carolina one month after she and the child return from the beach trip. The two-week period when the child was not in North Carolina clearly was a temporary absence, meaning the two weeks out of the state is “part of” the six months immediately before the commencement of the child-custody proceeding.