Who has Jurisdiction or long arm statute apply?

Why is this an NC estate planning question? This does not have to do with NC estate planning or even NC law in general. The long arm statute (which every state has) allows non-residents of a state to be sued. So why would it not apply? And jurisdiction over what? If a car loan was taken out in Missouri, where is the lender located? Everywhere? Divorce does not have anything to do with the car loan. The divorce decree can say whatever it says, but as between the lender and the borrower, the borrower was still liable. So on your facts, ex-wife used a poa to buy a car for herself in husband's name and later divorced. Wife got the car but never paid for it. I don't know if the divorce decree ordered her to assume responsibility for the payments or refinance. It probably did but if she was unable to refi and chose not to make payments there is not much that can be done except go back to the court that entered the divorce decree and pursue for contempt. Who are you attempting to obtain records from and what kind of records? Why would these records be subpoenaed? Records cannot be subpoenaed unless there is some kind of a court case so this does not make any sense based on your scarce information. If there is a public record (like a court judgment) you can obtain those. Any member of the public can see a public record. Your husband's credit reports and loan application is private and if he is stationed somewhere then he will have to give you or someone else a power of attorney if he wishes to access the information. Long arm statutes only apply if someone is being sued in a state where they do not now reside in. The questions will be (1) is it fair for the non-resident to be sued there; and (2) what is the basis for the state's assertion of jurisdiction. There are 2 kinds of jurisdiction: specific and general. An example of specific jurisdiction would occur where a party brings suit over a broken contract or where a specific harm occurred, like a car accident. General jurisdiction is based on a party's general contacts with a state outside of the lawsuit. For example, GM sells cars in all 50 states. A car it sells is defective. GM can be sued in the state where the person who bought the car lives; the injured person does not have to go to Michigan to sue. You say you want to know if ex-wife can be sued here, but I don't know where "here" is. Do you mean NC?If your husband wants to sue the ex-wife, he should sue the ex-wife where she resides NOW not where she lived at some time in the past. Why would he want to sue here anyway? The fraud occurred in Missouri since that is where the car loan was taken out. Arkansas has no connection with the case unless the ex-wife has general connections with Arkansas and husband lives there. If husband lives in NC, suit could possibly be brought here but I question whether NC has jurisdiction because the fraud/harm occurred in Missouri and wife has no connection with this case if the ex-wife does not live here now. Besides, NC is a non-wage garnishment state. Suing her here in NC will do nothing if ex-wife owns no property in NC because husband will not be able to collect on any money judgment. Even if he could sue here in NC, he would still have to take the judgment to the new state where the ex-wife lives and have it registered in the other state so it could then be enforced. You have a bigger problem and that is the statute of limitations. If the fraud occurred prior to 2008 and your husband knew about it, then the statute of limitations may well have expired. It certainly did if this was NC which only has a 3 year statute of limitations.