Bournes v. Harris, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2026). This post-dissolution appeal from the Family Part involved several questions arising out of a Marital Settlement Agreement (“MSA”) entered in a Texas court. In an opinion by Judge Firko, the Appellate Division affirmed a ruling by Judge Lougy, whom the panel identified by name, that New Jersey courts had jurisdiction to enforce and to modify the Texas MSA, and that Judge Lougy properly enforced arrears.

Judge Firko noted that the Appellate Division affords “great deference to discretionary decisions of Family Part judges,” but that rulings on legal issues are reviewed de novo. The facts and procedural history of this case were somewhat convoluted, and defendant asserted that New Jersey had no right to enforce or modify the Texas MSA even though, while plaintiff continued to live in Texas after the MSA, the parties’ children began living in New Jersey with their grandmother.

Judge Firko stated that the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:4-30.124 et seq. (“UIFSA”), “governs jurisdiction over the establishment, modification, and enforcement of a child support order when at least one of the parties to the action in which support is requested lives outside of the State.” Under the UIFSA, “a court that enters an order establishing child support retains continuing[,] exclusive jurisdiction to modify the order, and that court's orders remain the controlling child support orders for purposes of enforcement, until continuing, exclusive jurisdiction is conferred on another state's tribunal by operation of the Act.” New Jersey had registered the Texas MSA and had jurisdiction to enforce and to modify it.

The question then became what to do about certain arrears. Those arrears had been declared by a different judge to have been paid in full but were later restored by Judge Lougy. N.J.S.A. 2A:17-56.23a, the anti-retroactive support statute,“as a general matter prohibits the retroactive reduction of court-ordered child support, [but] the statute's anti-retroactivity requirement has been construed to be inapplicable to a reduction of child support based on a child's emancipation.” Judge Firko cited two prior Appellate Division decisions for that principle. Because emancipation was involved here, it was error for the prior judge to undo the arrears and it was proper for Judge Lougy to reinstate them.