How do you translate a Puerto Rico child-support order that references both state-court jurisdiction and a federal bankruptcy case?
A Puerto Rico Superior Court issued a child-support Resolución that divided the obligor-mother's debts into two groups: three items filed as allowed claims in her pending U.S. Bankruptcy Court case — an ASUME arrears balance and two prior school-year balances — and one separate debt for the current school year that the state court retained under its own jurisdiction. We translated ASUME, Alimentante, Sala, Tribunal de Primera Instancia, and Corte de Quiebras consistently so counsel in the bankruptcy case and the state-court record could be read side by side in US English.
What We Received
A client submitted a Puerto Rico Superior Court Resolución issued by the Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de San Juan, in a custody case (K CU2018-0414) that governs child-support enforcement. The document is a post-hearing order entered after a Contempt Hearing (Vista de Desacato) held in person with both parents and three attorneys present — one of them appearing specifically to represent the obligor-mother in her pending U.S. Bankruptcy Court case.
The order separates the obligor's liabilities into two groups. Three items — an ASUME arrears balance and two past-due private-school balances — are listed as allowed claims for child-support obligation in the bankruptcy case. A fourth debt, for the current academic year, is kept under the state court's continuing jurisdiction and governed by a five-step payment plan. A certified Spanish translation was needed for filings in the parallel bankruptcy matter.
Why This Required Special Handling
Puerto Rico family-law orders do not line up with mainland US family-law vocabulary. ASUME (Administración para el Sustento de Menores) is the island's child-support enforcement agency; stripping the acronym out of the translation would lose the reference number a bankruptcy adjudicator needs to match the order against a claim filed by the agency, but leaving the acronym unidentified is unhelpful for a mainland reader. Alimentante means "support obligor" in US usage — not "feeder" or "provider," the literal dictionary renderings. Sala is a courtroom/section number, not a courtroom name.
Tribunal de Primera Instancia is the trial-level court of Puerto Rico; the literal calque "First Instance Court" is recognizable to US readers as "Court of First Instance" only in international contexts. And Corte de Quiebras has to map to "U.S. Bankruptcy Court" — a bare "Bankruptcy Court" invites ambiguity about whether a separate Puerto Rico insolvency forum is involved when in fact the order is coordinating with a federal proceeding. Misrender any of these and the jurisdictional split the judge drew between allowed claims and retained-jurisdiction debts disappears in English.
How We Handled It
We translated each Puerto Rico-specific term with a consistent US English equivalent and kept the acronym where it identifies an agency of record: ASUME was kept as-is, with "Administración para el Sustento de Menores — the Puerto Rico Child Support Administration" expanded in a Translator's Note. Alimentante was rendered as Obligor. Sala became Courtroom. Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de San Juan became Court of First Instance, San Juan Superior Court. Corte de Quiebras became U.S. Bankruptcy Court throughout. Ledo./Leda. (Licenciado/a — licensed attorney) was rendered as Atty. Jueza Superior was rendered as Superior Judge, preserving the gender neutrality US court translations use for bench titles.
The numbered list structure of the order — three allowed-claim items followed by the retained-jurisdiction debt, then a five-step payment plan — was preserved so a reader can line up each English item against the corresponding Spanish one. Every amount and date was carried over digit-for-digit: the ASUME arrears balance of $5,463.27, the $22,788.39 prior-year balance at one school, the $9,246.75 balance at the other, the $7,069.61 retained-jurisdiction balance, the $2,000.00 payment already applied on March 11, 2026, and the biweekly $300.00 payments beginning in May 2026. Spanish calendar dates ("15 de abril de 2026") were rendered as US-style "April 15, 2026" to remove DD/MM ambiguity.
Two minor typographical errors in the original — "maneta" for "manera" and "pot" for "por" — were rendered with the correct intended meaning and documented in a Translator's Note, per standard certified-translation practice.
The Outcome
The certified translation was delivered to the client for use by counsel in the parallel U.S. Bankruptcy Court matter and for the parties' attorneys of record. The three allowed-claim items, the retained-jurisdiction debt, and the five-step payment plan each read cleanly in English with every amount and date matching the original line-for-line.
What This Means for You
A certified translation that preserves Puerto Rico-specific vocabulary — ASUME, Alimentante, Sala, Tribunal de Primera Instancia — while identifying each term for a mainland US reader is the right approach when a local family-court order has to travel into a federal bankruptcy case. Literal dictionary translations of these terms strip away the agency references and jurisdictional nouns that bankruptcy counsel needs in order to match the order against a claims register.
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