There were orders, written orders, shown to the hospital, Please, lets keep to the facts in evidence.
Both WA and MT have accepted the UCCJEA however there are some aspects of it that must still be considered. The UCCJEA has a provision re jurisdiciton wherein the jurisdiciton stays in the state where the custody action is filed and the court has taken action as WA has. There is no custody action existing in MT, only the motion to chnage the venue of the existing WA custody case to MT prior to the judges rulings on paternity/custody/parenting plan. This petition in and of it's self acknowledges the WA currently has jurisdiction, since they are asking that it be moved. The paternity action filed/served before the child was born and both parents were residents and the child's home state according to WA statutes. The child's "home" state is 1 of 4 factors to be considered. The only reason the child is in MT is because the mother effectively abducted the child and left the jurisdiction after accepting service of the paternity action. The UCCJEA is meant to enforce and the PKPA.
The original drafters of the UCCJA always thought that the home state of the child was the best state within which to find the information for making a custody decision in the best interests of the child. However, it was also assumed that once a court took jurisdiction on any other acceptable basis, that state should be able to proceed without delaying to determine if some other state has home state status. In this case, both parents were WA residents and insofar as the evidence, conception also took place in WA althought this is being argued. Once proved, the conflict between the mother's 2 conflicting claims, most likely the claim of MT jurisdiction based on conception will be dismissed, unless there is evidence in her medical record of possible conception in the first week of Nov. 2004.
The drafters of the PKPA took the opposite position. The home state was deemed so much better than any other jurisdictional ground, that it should always be the priority ground. Under the PKPA the home state always has the first opportunity to take jurisdiction. The argument here is what is the home state, it may not be where the child was born.
The UCCJEA now supports the PKPA position (which was the de facto law in each state because of Federal preemption. Any state that is not the home state of the child will defer to the home state, if there is one, in taking jurisdiction over a child custody dispute. Temporary emergency jurisdiction may be taken, but only long enough to secure the safety of the threatened person and to transfer the proceeding to the home state, or if none, to a state with another ground for jurisdiction. This is the limbo in this case, it is not clear cut as it may seem. Why is that?
CONTINUING EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION
The UCCJEA also provides for continuing exclusive jurisdiction. If a state once takes jurisdiction over a child custody dispute, as WA has, it retains jurisdiction so long as that state, by its own determination, not another states determination, maintains a significant connection with the disputants in this case the father and the mother because she has not established residence in MT and is not sure she will remain there or until all disputants have moved away from that state. In contrast, the UCCJA allows jurisdiction to shift if the initial ground for taking jurisdiction ceases to exist. Thus, if a state takes jurisdiction over a child custody dispute because that state is the home state of the child, and the child subsequently establishes a new home state, jurisdiction can shift to the new home state, even if one parent remains in the child's original home state. The UCCJEA would not allow the jurisdiction to shift in this fashion, keeping it in the original home state so long as the parent remains there.