NBA Player Chris Bosh Child Support Case to be Heard in Texas

Toronto Raptors’ star Chris Bosh will have his child support case heard by a Texas court after all. Bosh’s ex-girlfriend Allison Mathis filed a paternity suit in Maryland after their daughter Trinity was born in November 2008. Bosh argued that Maryland courts did not have jurisdiction over him when it came to determining child support for Trinity. The Maryland court will retain jurisdiction over the custody portion of the case.

The child was born in Maryland after Mathis moved there from Texas shortly after she and Bosh broke up in the late summer. Mathis claimed that Bosh cut her off financially, had her removed from their jointly-owned home and that she has had to borrow money from family to support herself and the baby.

Bosh specifically denied these claims in responsive pleadings. He claims that he paid for a rental car for Mathis after the breakup, has covered Trinity’s prenatal and postnatal health care costs and has sent monthly support checks to Mathis since November.

After the breakup, on October 3, 2008, Bosh petitioned a Texas court to determine custody and support for the then-unborn child in the event that he and Mathis could not reach an agreement. He amended his pleadings in January, requesting a temporary order to cover care, custody and support of the baby.

The bi-state jurisdiction question is an interesting and confusing one. The reason that the Maryland court retains the child custody question is that the child was born there, lives there, is seen by doctors there, has family there, etc. Child custody is about the child and how to determine what is in her best interests. She never lived in Texas – it would be hard to argue that a Texas court could better decide her interests.

On the flip side, Texas courts are better suited to determine child support because the prospective payor (Bosh) is domiciled in Texas. Bosh has never lived or worked in Maryland. For a court to have jurisdiction over someone, that person must do something to subject themselves to that jurisdiction. In this case, if Bosh had lived in Maryland or had even conceived the child in Maryland, the court would have jurisdiction over the child support case. But here, Bosh had no contact with Maryland whatsoever. His baby’s mother chose to move to Maryland two weeks before the baby was born. No affirmative acts on Bosh’s part means no authority by the Maryland court to order him to pay child support.