Child Custody: We Can’t “Change Venue” to Another State

I received a call once from a clerk of court asking what she should do with a voluminous court file received in the mail from a court in another state. It was a large box containing all of the pleadings, motions, reports and other filings for a custody case that had been litigated in another state for several years, accompanied by a court order signed by a judge in that other state “transferring venue” of the case to North Carolina, citing as authority that state’s version of the Uniform Child Custody and Jurisdiction Act (the “UCCJEA”).