In a good faith gesture my estranged wife let me take my daughter for a visit. I don't want to give her back. What can I do. I have her out of state

Unless you want to lose her forever, you bring her back when you agreed to.

If you feel you aren't getting your fair share of visitation with the child, then you go to court and ask for a set visitation schedule or a modification of an existing one. Then you can have the court enforce the schedule if the mother reneges. But not returning the child will be looked on unfavorably by the courts. If she is the custodial parent and you don't return her you could find yourself charged with parental kidnapping.

Yes that helped. Can I try for an emergency hearing in my state of residence with out informing the mother

No. Any hearing would require a summons issued to the mother. Also, since the child has not established residency with you, the custody hearing would have to be in the state of residence.

If you try filing for custody without returning the child you will be working with 2 strikes against you.

prytann, No you cannot file for an emergency hearing in your state of residence without informing the mother. The court of the state the child resides in usually holds jurisdiction. What you are doing is kidnapping. Take your daughter back to her mother and file in the proper court or you could lose big time.

Has custody been decided yet in any court ? Are you listed on the birth certificate ?

yes that helped. can i try for an emergency hearing in my state of residence with out informing the mother

Sorry to disagree with everyone on the board, but YES, you may file in your state for an emergency hearing. Absolutely. Yes, the state issuing the decree indeed has continuing exclusive jurisdiction (COC) (assuming your ex- still lives in the decree state) but the UCCJEA allows for any state to acquire jurisdiction on an emergency basis, that's an exception to COC--BUT, there better be a true emergency, and by that I don't mean your daughter doesn't like momma anymore and wants to live with dad!

If you've got child abuse, neglect, domestic violence, yeah, ask for an emergency ex parte modification of your exising order where you are. You may still have to give some sort of notice to the mom if practical (check your local rules to see how they handle ex parte requests). If the court grants some temporary relief, it may set a time limit on how long the order runs (like 30 days) and you may be required to return to the decree state and file a motion for modification there for the case to continue after your temporary order expires. But it can be done. That's how temp. emergency jurisdiction works. Plus, there is a meet and confer requirement--the judge in your state may have to have a "UCCJEA Conference Call" with the judge in the decree state to figure out what to do.

Check with a good local family law attorney if you are serious about this. But again, no horsing around, you better not violate the existing order and you better have a true emergency to try a mod in your state.

My apologies for sounding a little pedantic about this but here's an example of why we have temporary emergency jurisdiction in the law.

Imagine hypothetically that mom and dad and the kid live in Sacramento, California and they have custody orders. Say dad starts getting abusive and mom runs with the kid to Reno seeking refuge with her mom. Dad follows her and harasses her and makes threats. Now, never mind the restraining order jazz for a moment. If mom wants to modify custody to avoid having to turn the kid over to the madman dad on his weekend, do you really think it makes any sense for mom to have to get in the car and drive back to Sacramento to file for a modification? What if it would be a danger to her to have to do that? She cannot just call the police to solve the problem, the police cannot modify a court order. Doesn't it make more sense to allow her to run into the local Reno courthouse and ask for an emergency temporary order protecting her and the kid from crazy dad, at least until she can catch her breath and go back safely to Sacramento and do the modification? Of course it does! And the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws knew this when they wrote the UCCJEA. That's why this exception is there and why you can do this.

Comments on this post
Sunflowers (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/members/sunflowers.html) disagrees: there has been no evidence of an emergency offered

First, may I call your attention to the guidelines for using the comments feature found here:

https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/feedback/using-comments-feature-24951.html

Cadillac's comment was appropriate because your response was factually inaccurate. However, your negative comment seems to be simply a revenge reddie. And that is NOT appropriate.

I guess I don't know how to use the site properly. Since the OP offered no evidence of any kind of an emergency, only simply a wish to not return the child, I disagreed with Cadillac. I don't know what a revenge reddie is. I wasn't aware that it is correct to argue on a thread about a situation that wasn't asked.

I guess I don't know how to use the site properly. Since the OP offered no evidence of any kind of an emergency, only simply a wish to not return the child, I disagreed with Cadillac. I don't know what a revenge reddie is. I wasn't aware that it is correct to argue on a thread about a situation that wasn't asked.

The OP asked if he could file for an emergency hearing. Why did you assume there was no emergency just because he didn't explain what his emergency might be?

Were you even aware that a state may acquire temporary emergency jurisdiction in a proper case? Your answer suggested otherwise.

I assumed there was no emergency because the mother (estranged wife) handed the child over in good faith, for a Visit. If there seemed to be some kind of an emergency the estranged wife would not be so cooperative as to give the child to the father in good faith for a visit, I assume. Because in good faith means she is expecting the child to be returned to her. I also assume they are not divorced yet since he referred to her as estranged wife instead of the mother of my child or my ex. Instead of saying he has an emergency need to file in a state that the child is not a resident of, he says he wishes to keep her and doesn't want to give her back.

Yes I am aware that special circumstances allow for emergency temporary jurisdiction, but with the information given here I don't see it so I feel if he tries something like that without a true emergency he's really going to hurt his chances in the eventual custody battle he and his wife are facing.

Ok, no more fighting. Since the OP did ask about an emergency hearing it was proper to answer what the requirements and chances of getting one were. Lets focus back on the OP's questions.