Also known as: Uniform Act · Uniform Laws
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Model legislation drafted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and proposed for adoption by state legislatures. These acts seek to promote consistency in particular fields of law among enacting jurisdictions, though states frequently modify the promulgated text and universal adoption is rare.
Umar Underwood, a sole proprietor, files an arbitration demand in State A after a contract dispute arises. State A has enacted the Uniform Arbitration Act. The court applies the act's provisions to determine whether the dispute is arbitrable and to enforce the resulting award, resolving the matter without regard to variations that would exist under purely local procedural rules.
After their divorce in State X, Ursula Ureña and Ugo Ucelli dispute ownership of retirement benefits. State Y, where the enforcement action proceeds, has adopted a uniform act governing marital property. The court classifies the benefits according to the act's rules on separate and marital property, producing an equitable division that differs from the result that would obtain under State X's unmodified common law.
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Uri Underwood and Urban Utley disagree over legal parentage of a child born through gestational surrogacy. The court in their state, which follows a uniform act on parentage, examines the parties' intentions and agreements under the statute's criteria. The resulting parentage order binds both parties and establishes support obligations that would not necessarily arise under non-uniform state precedents.
Ugo Uberti dies intestate, leaving a child born outside marriage. The probate court in the enacting state applies a uniform act on intestate succession that treats the child as an heir once paternity is established. The outcome grants the child a share of the estate, overriding older common-law barriers that would otherwise exclude the child from inheritance.
States adopt these acts to obtain tested statutory language and to facilitate predictable outcomes in multistate transactions or family matters. The hornbook excerpts note that the word uniform is a misnomer because few acts achieve universal adoption and states routinely depart from the official text.
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Courts are directed to consider the need to promote uniformity of the law among enacting states. Multiple uniform acts contain an explicit construction provision requiring this consideration when applying or construing the statute.
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No. Family-law uniform acts and related statutes provide that any term in a premarital or marital agreement is unenforceable to the extent it adversely affects a child's independent right to support.
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The petition must set forth the names, ages, and addresses of all living children of the marriage and state whether the wife is pregnant. Failure to include these required disclosures renders the petition legally insufficient.
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…to do so. Nor can I find some appropriately defined forbidden category by looking to the congressional purpose of establishing uniform laws to regulate the administration of pension funds. Cf. Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon , 498 U. S. 133 (1990); Massachusetts v. Morash, supra , at 115. This case does not involve a lawsuit…