Former Minnesota Twins pitcher Jay Jackson must honor a Japanese child-support judgment for a son he fathered with a Japanese woman, the Court of Appeals of Minnesota ruled on Tuesday.

Jackson, 37, argued Minnesota lacks the authority to register a Japanese child-support judgment for enforcement.

However, a three-judge appellate panel agreed with Masami Kiya, who gave birth to her and Jackson’s son in 2018. The ruling means Kiya can continue to pursue enforcement of the judgment.

The pitcher has bounced around pro baseball since the Chicago Cubs drafted him in the ninth round of the 2008 MLB Draft out of Furman University.

Described in an opinion authored by Judge Kevin G. Ross as having a “journeyman’s career,” Jackson has played for six big league teams and more than a dozen teams in the minor leagues and in Japan and Mexico.

The relevant period for the case is when Jackson pitched for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp from 2016 to 2018. During that time, he met and began a romantic relationship with Kiya.

The relationship eventually deteriorated and that led to court filings in Japan related to the couple’s son. In 2021, a Japanese family court ordered Jackson to pay Kiya child support.

But by 2021, Jackson had already left Japan.

That year he pitched for the San Francisco Giants and their Triple-A affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats. In February 2024, Jackson signed a contract with the Twins and a month later signed a six-month lease for an apartment in Minneapolis.

As the Twins began the 2024 season with Jackson on the opening day roster, Kiya used the Minnesota Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (MUIFSA)—which empowers Minnesota to recognize and enforce child support judgments from other jurisdictions—to register a foreign support order.

That filing began the process for Kiya to collect final support from Jackson, who as a Twins pitcher was employed by a Minnesota business. A Minnesota judge then issued a notice of registration and mailed it to Target Field, where the Twins play home games.

That led to Jackson finding out about his ex-partner’s child support pursuit while in his new state—and at his place of work.

“Jackson discovered the notice,” Ross wrote, “on his chair at the stadium on April 19, 2024.”

Jackson then sought to vacate Kiya’s registration, arguing he was not a Minnesota resident and that, as a nonresident, there was insufficient jurisdiction for a court to consider the matter.

He also insisted that “Japan does not have ‘substantially similar’ child support statutes with Minnesota.” A district court judge disagreed and affirmed that Kiya’s registration of the Japanese judgment was lawful under Minnesota law.

As for Jackson’s baseball career, he struggled on the mound for the Twins. In 20 relief appearances, Jackon gave up 28 hits, 24 earned runs and seven home runs in just 26.1 innings of work.

That netted Jackson a 7.52 ERA. The Twins released him last July.

Jackson hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since, though two months ago the Bravos de León of the Mexican League signed him.

In upholding the district court’s ruling against Jackson, Ross explained that the purpose of MUIFSA is to capture a uniform act (the UIFSA) that has been adopted in all 50 states and unifies state laws related to enforcement of child support orders. Among MUIFSA provisions is that a foreign country’s tribunal can be registered and enforced in Minnesota.

Jackson’s attempt to claim a lack of jurisdiction in Minnesota failed to persuade Ross. Jackson contended that he didn’t intend to reside in Minnesota “permanently,” but Ross said permanence is not the applicable test—it’s instead whether Jackson intended to live in Minnesota “indefinitely.” The judge acknowledged that Jackson didn’t take ordinary steps to signal an intent to remain in Minnesota. For example, he signed only a six-month lease, rather than sign a longer-term lease or buy property.

Jackson also didn’t obtain a Minnesota driver’s license. But Ross reasoned “the lack of this sort of typical evidence” on the part of Jackson is best understood as a reflection of Jackson’s “atypical lifestyle as a professional athlete.”

Like other journeymen players, Jackson aspires to sign a long-term deal with a team but begins his employment with only a short-term commitment.

Ross also stressed that Jackson’s attempt to claim an alternative domicile to Minnesota “was conspicuously sparse.” Jackson suggested South Carolina or Utah, but didn’t offer sufficient evidence to establish a nexus to either state. To that point, Ross wrote, Kiya “accurately complained” that her former partner “provided no information about where his residence is, if not Minnesota.”

That unresolved dynamic led Kiya to file in Minnesota, where she knew Jackson would be employed at least for some time, for child support.

In addition, Ross underscored that Jackson left Minnesota not because he intended to leave, but rather because the Twins released him after his struggles on the mound.

In sworn testimony last summer, Jackson said “since losing my job [with the Twins] last month, I’d planned to terminate my short-term lease … and either spend time in Utah with my fiancée and son … or go home to South Carolina, where I grew up and went to college.”

Ross reasoned that testimony actually hurts, rather than helps, Jackson’s case because it suggests that when Kiya registered for child support in Minnesota, “Jackson had been physically present in Minnesota and intended to make the state his home for the indefinite future.”

Ross also determined that Japan has enacted laws and procedures that are substantially similar to the rights and obligations detailed in MUIFSA. The judge referenced Article 118 of Japan’s Code of Civil Procedure and how it “allows for recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments.”

The judge acknowledged that, as Jackson argued, Japan “does not provide for income withholding as a method of enforcement.” However, he reasoned that the law doesn’t require child support laws in Minnesota and Japan to be identical and that even if Japan doesn’t permit income withholding, “it does have some tools to enforce child-support obligations.”

Jackson can petition the Minnesota Supreme Court to review the case.