Walker v Walker, 2012 WL 5668330 (C.A.7 (Ill.) [Australia] [Habitual Residence] [Consent]

In Walker v Walker, 2012 WL 5668330 (C.A.7 (Ill.) Iain Walker, a citizen of Australia, filed suit to compel his wife, Norene, a citizen of the United States, to return the couple's three children to Australia. Iain and Norene were married in Chicago in 1993. They lived in Seattle, Washington, until 1998 when they moved to Perth, in Western Australia. The couple's eldest child was born in the United States in 1997, but lived in this country only one year; the two younger children were born in Australia in 1999 and 2001.

Although Norene testified that she and Iain initially intended to stay in Australia for only five years, they ended up spending 12 years there. Over this period, they and their children appeared to be well-settled: they owned a home, furniture, and a dog named Chubba; the children attended school, had friends, and participated in activities; and Iain worked as a software test engineer while Norene cared for the children.

In June 2010, the Walkers traveled to the United States. When they left Australia,
both Iain and Norene expected that Norene and the children would remain in the United States for six months to one year. According to Iain, the plan was for Norene and the children to live with Norene's parents in Chicago while the family demolished its existing house in Perth and built a new one. According to Norene, the trip was intended as an extended prelude to a permanent move to the United States; she testified that Iain promised to look for a job in Chicago and that they looked at real estate in San Francisco and Seattle. Although both recalled that Norene and the children had concrete plans to return to Australia by June 2011 at the latest, Norene labeled this most likely a temporary visit and Iain understood it to be a permanent return. After spending several weeks with Norene and the children in the United States, Iain returned to Australia in late July 2010. In November, Norene filed for divorce in Cook County, Illinois. As of that time, she said, she had not made up her mind whether she (and presumably the children) would remain in the United States permanently or return to Australia.

  
Upon receiving Norene's petition for divorce, Iain's lawyer in Australia sent a letter to Norene's attorney offering to settle the divorce out of court. The letter also dealt with the division of property. Notably, the letter explicitly referred to the Hague Convention. On Iain's behalf, the lawyer asserted that "[t]he parties' habitual residence is quite clearly Australia," and that Iain "would clearly be entitled to bring an Application under the Hague Convention to have the children returned to Australia."In closing, the letter stated "this offer is open for a period of 7 days ... and if not accepted [Iain] will then proceed to exercise his full rights pursuant to the Hague Convention, and do all that is required to ensure that proceedings are transferred" to the Family Court of the State of Western Australia. The January 21 letter marked a turning point for Norene. She regarded it as giving her permission to stay in the United States and indicating that Iain "didn't want the kids." She testified that shortly after receiving the letter, she made up her mind not to return to Australia. The negotiations ended without a resolution in mid-February. Iain immediately filed a request for the return of the children with the Australian Central Authority charged with administering the Convention. In May, Iain filed a petition for return in the district court for the Northern District of Illinois. Following a two-day evidentiary hearing, the district court denied the petition.

The Seventh Circuit rejected Noreens argument that the case was mooted by an Illinois state-court judgment awarding sole custody of the children to Norene.
According to Norene, the Illinois judgment conclusively resolved the parties'
custody dispute in her favor and precluded the court from ruling that the Hague
Convention required the custody determination to occur in the courts of Australia.
It observed that Article 17 of the Hague Convention expressly states that "[t]he sole fact that a decision relating to custody has been given in or is entitled to recognition in the requested State shall not be a ground for refusing to return a child under this Convention." This treaty provision qualifies the finality of any state-court custody judgment and thus ensures that there is still a live controversy before the federal court.

It distinguished Navani v. Shahani, 496 F.3d 1121 (10th Cir.2007) which did not address this question. The issue of habitual residence, and thus the question of which country's courts had the power finally to determine custody under the Convention, was not before the court in Navani. Here, Iain and Norene disputed habitual residence. Until that question is resolved, it could not say which country's courts had the power to resolve the issue of custody. As Article 17 of the Convention implies, this antecedent question must be answered before the court knows what weight to give to the judgment of the Illinois court. Accepting Norene's position that an abducting parent may render a petition for return moot by racing to a courthouse in her chosen country to obtain a custody judgment would turn the Convention on its head. To consider this case moot would encourage the very sort of jurisdictional gerrymandering the Convention was designed to prevent.

The Court of Appeals also held that the district court's decision to admit the January 21 letter into evidence over Iain's objection that the letter was an offer of settlement and thus inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 408 was error. Iain challenged the district court's findings that he (1) failed to establish that the  children were habitually resident in Australia; (2) failed to establish that he was exercising his custody rights; and (3) consented to the children remaining permanently in the United States.

The district court identified May 4, 2011, the day Iain filed his petition for return in the district court, as the date the retention began. It considered that to be the date when
Iain first "unequivocally signaled h[is] opposition to [the children's] presence in the
United States."Although Iain had expressed his intent to file a petition for return of the  children in the January 21 letter (and again in a follow-up letter on February 16), the district court declined to view these statements as "unequivocal[ ] signal[s]" of opposition because, in the court's view, "it was apparent that Petitioner was referring to the Convention as a bargaining chip." Nothing but speculation supported the
district court's "bargaining chip" idea. The January 21 letter unequivocally said that "[t]he parties' habitual residence is quite clearly Australia."It goes on to point out that the "clearly appropriate forum" for the parties' divorce proceedings is Australia and that it is "an abuse of process to unilaterally decide to remain in the United States."It then repeats that "Western Australia is the habitual residence of the children."Finally, the letter announces Iain's intent to file a petition under the Hague Convention, a step that he confirmed in his February 16 letter. Under the circumstances, it was hard to see how much more "unequivocal" one could be. For purposes of analysis, the court assumed that the retention began on January 21, or, at the latest, several weeks thereafter.

The Court of Appeals observed that to prevail on his petition, Iain was required to show that Australia was the children's habitual residence at the time of their retention in the United States. It explained in detail how to determine a child's habitual residence in Koch v. Koch, 450 F.3d 703 (7th Cir.2006). In a case of wrongful detention the court determines a child's habitual residence by asking whether a prior place of residence ... was effectively abandoned and a new residence established by the shared actions and intent of the parents coupled with the passage of time. Because the parents often dispute their intentions, "the court should look at actions as well as declarations" in determining whether the parents "shared an intent to abandon a prior habitual residence."

The district court found that the children's habitual residence became the United States by January 21, 2011, at the latest. This conclusion was premised on the
following findings: that Iain consented to the children's living in the United States in
the January 21 letter; that five months passed between the letter and the filing of
the petition for return in district court; and that Iain and Norene looked for houses in
the United States. The first finding fundamentally misreads the January
21 letter. The problem with the second finding was that Iain took prompt steps to secure the children's return by filing a request for return with the Australian Central Authority in mid-February 2011, as soon as it became apparent that a negotiated settlement was not forthcoming. The Court could not find enough in the record to support the conclusion that Iain and Norene arrived in the United States with the shared intention of abandoning Australia and establishing a new habitual residence here.

Assuming that the children's habitual residence was Australia, Iain must still show he
was "actually exercis[ing]" his custody rights at the time of the retention. Art. 3. The
standard for finding that a parent was exercising his custody rights is a liberal one, and  courts will generally find exercise whenever "a parent with de jure custody rights keeps, or seeks to keep, any sort of regular contact with his or her child." Bader v. Kramer, 484 F.3d 666, 671 (4th Cir.2007) Indeed, "a person cannot fail to 'exercise' [his] custody rights under the Hague Convention short of acts that constitute clear and unequivocal abandonment of the child." Friedrich, 78 F.3d at 1066. Although it acknowledged the liberal nature of the standard, the district court  nevertheless found that Iain had "abandoned" his children. In support of this rather
extreme conclusion, the court noted that Iain did not return to the United States after
July 2010, that he ceased supporting Norene financially after January 21, 2011, and
that his January 21 letter was mainly concerned with "the negotiation of support
payments and property settlement." All of those things may be true, but they did not add up to "unequivocal abandonment" of the children (as opposed, perhaps, to Norene). The district court overlooked Norene's undisputed testimony that Iain keeps "regular contact" with the children by speaking to them weekly over Skype. Just as the January 21 letter did not show that Iain consented to the children's remaining in the United States, it similarly did not show that Iain was interested exclusively in reaching a settlement regarding marital property. A letter that requests custody for the children's entire summer vacation plus Christmas and asks for multiple visitation opportunities at other times of the year can hardly be characterized as indifferent to custody issues.

lain's lack of financial support after January 21, 2011, was not enough for a finding of abandonment. Because non-exercise is evaluated at the time of the retention, which must have occurred on January 21 or shortly thereafter, lain's failure to provide support after the retention was irrelevant to whether he was exercising his custody rights when the wrongful retention began. See, e.g., Baxter v. Baxter, 423 F.3d 363, 369 (3d Cir.2005) The cases that address some version of this issue have found that a parent does not fail to exercise his custody rights merely by failing to provide financial support for some period prior to the removal or retention. The Court could not find on the current record that Iain's failure to provide financial assistance while Convention proceedings are pending amounted to a failure to exercise his custody rights.

Even if Iain had established a case for return under the Convention, he could
have waived that right if he consented to, or acquiesced in, the children's remaining in the United States with their mother. Art. 13. Consent and acquiescence are analytically distinct defenses to return under the Convention. Baxter, 423 F .3d at 371. The consent exception applies when a petitioning parent, either expressly or through his conduct, agrees to a removal or retention before it takes place. A parent's consent need not be formal, but "it is important to consider what the petitioner actually contemplated and agreed to in allowing the child to travel outside its home country. Acquiescence is implicated if a petitioning parent agrees to or accepts a removal or retention after the fact. Baxter, 423 F.3d at 371. Unlike consent, acquiescence must be formal, and might include "testimony in a judicial proceeding; a convincing written renunciation of rights; or a consistent attitude of acquiescence over a significant period of time." One way or another, the "exceptions [must] be drawn very narrowly lest their application undermine the express purposes of the Convention. The Article 13 exceptions are  permissive: a court may order return even if it finds that the parent opposing the petition has established that one of the exceptions applies.

The district court found that Norene had established consent. The bases for this
conclusion were the January 21 letter, which the district court characterized as indicating Iain's "unconditional consent" to the children remaining in the United States, Iain's failure to visit the United States after July 2010, and his failure to provide financial support. The January 21 letter could not be read as an expression of consent, let alone unconditional consent, to anything. The letter was an opening offer, a single stage in a negotiation; it conceded nothing and in any event was rendered null by the parties' failure to come to an agreement. Apart from the letter, the district court's remaining justifications were either clearly erroneous or irrelevant.

Having concluded that the district court's decision the Court remanded for further fact finding setting forth the questions the district court must resolve taking evidence as necessary.

Estrada v. Salas-Perez, 2012 WL 4503147 (N.D.Ill.) [Mexico][Habitual Residence] [Grave Risk of Harm]

In Estrada v. Salas-Perez, 2012 WL 4503147 (N.D.Ill.) Petitioner Enrique Estrada and Respondent Sofia Salas-Perez were the parents of a seven year-old child. On February 13, 2012, Estrada filed a Hague Convention petition in the district court. The district court granted the petition.

Estrada was born in Mexico and moved to the United States in or around 1996. He was a Mexican national. Estrada moved from Illinois back to Mexico in May 2007. . Salas-Perez was born in Mexico and moved to the United States in or around 2001 with her son Rigoberto. She was a Mexican national and currently resided in Illinois.Estrada and Salas-Perez met in Mexico as children. When Salas-Perez first moved to Chicago, Estrada helped her get situated. On October 5, 2004, in Chicago, Salas-Perez gave birth to the child. Estrada's and Salas-Perez's romantic relationship ended in or around May 2006. On July 17, 2006, Estrada filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, a petition to establish his paternity of the child. On August 25, 2006, the Illinois court entered an agreed order awarding Estrada the "sole care, custody, control and education" of the child. Salas-Perez was given weekend visitation rights and was required to pay child support. After losing his job, Estrada decided in 2007 that he wanted to move back to Mexico with the child. Without obtaining Salas-Perez's consent or the Illinois court's permission, Estrada moved with the child to Mexico on May 27, 2007. Salas-Perez did not have advance notice of the move and did not learn that Estrada had left for Mexico with their child until days later. On July 17, 2007, on Salas-Perez's motion, the Illinois court entered an emergency order of protection requiring Estrada to return the child to Illinois, in compliance with the  court's August 2006 custody order. On July 26, 2007, Salas-Perez submitted a Hague Convention petition to the United States Department of State, claiming that Estrada's removal of the child to Mexico was wrongful because it violated her custody rights under the Illinois court's August 2006 and July 2007 orders. Salas-Perez's petition eventually was registered in the Family Court of Cuautitlan Izcalli, Mexico. Estrada enrolled the child in kindergarten and elementary school in Mexico. On May 16, 2009, Estrada married a woman named Janet. Estrada did not learn of Salas-Perez's Hague Convention petition until June 2009, when he was served with process by a Mexican court officer.

In January 2010, Salas-Perez, filed a Motion for Modification of Parenting Agreement in the Illinois court. The motion asked the state court to modify the August   2006 order to give Salas-Perez sole custody of the child. In early 2010, Estrada and Salas-Perez spoke about negotiating a custody agreement; Salas-Perez credibly testified at the evidentiary hearing, without contradiction, that Estrada threatened that she would not be able to see the child unless she reached an agreement with him. An agreement was reached with the assistance of the parties' lawyers; Salas-Perez's lawyer was not licensed to practice in Mexico. Salas-Perez's lawyer told her that it might be difficult for the Mexican authorities to bring Estrada into court, and that the fastest and surest way for her to see the child again would be to reach an agreement. In March 2010, the Office of the Secretary of Foreign Relations of Mexico wrote a letter to the Mexican family court reporting that the parties had reached an agreement regarding custody. The letter noted that Salas-Perez had submitted the custody agreement to the Secretary of Foreign Relations for the purpose of having it signed by Estrada and ratified by the Mexican court. Salas-Perez signed the custody agreement at the Mexican Consulate in Chicago in front of a consular official. The custody agreement was entered on March 17, 2010, by the Mexican family court. The court order was signed by the Mexican judge, a representative of the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Estrada, Estrada's attorney, and Silvia Torres Elizondo. Elizondo signed on Salas-Perez's behalf, having previously been granted power of attorney.

The March 2010 custody agreement provided for shared custody. It stated that  the child shall remain "under the care and attendance of her father [Estrada] in the  domicile located in [Cuautitlan Izcalli, Mexico] in reason of considering both convenient  and healthy for their minor daughter." It further provided that the child shall  attend school in Mexico under her father's "attention," that Salas-Perez shall have  phone privileges while the child is in Mexico, and that the child shall visit Salas-Perez in
Illinois during school breaks in December, Holy Week, and the summer. The  agreement also provided that the child shall return to Mexico from Illinois around the time school resumes after those breaks. n August 3, 2010, the Illinois court entered an order stating: “As this settlement agreement addresses all issues before this Court and the respondent having moved this Court for leave to withdraw her Motion to Modify the Parenting Agreement, ...respondent is given leave to withdraw her Motion to
Modify the Parenting Agreement.” The order was prepared by Salas-Perez's counsel. In March 2010, July 2010, December 2010, and April 2011, consistent with the March 2010 custody agreement, the child visited Salas-Perez in Chicago for one - to three-week periods. At the end of each of these four visits, Salas-Perez sent the child back to Mexico. The child traveled to Chicago to visit Salas-Perez in May 2011 for summer vacation. Salas-Perez did not allow the child to return to Mexico in August 2011. Salas-Perez retained the child because the child said that she had been abused by Janet (Estrada's wife) in Mexico.

On September 30, 2011, Estrada filed a Hague Convention petition with the  Mexican Central Authority seeking the child's return to Mexico. The Mexican Central Authority forwarded the petition to the United States Central Authority on October 3, 2011.   The district court found that Salas-Perez retained the child in Illinois in August 2011 by failing to return her to Mexico for the start of the school year and that Mexico was the child's habitual residence immediately before the retention occurred. Estrada's unilateral and unauthorized move of the child to Mexico did not in any respect weigh in favor of finding the child's habitual residence to be Mexico. The child's habitual residence was Illinois in the wake of, and in the years following, Estrada's move to Mexico with the child in May 2007. The child's habitual residence changed from Illinois to Mexico in March 2010, when the Mexican family court entered an order ratifying the custody agreement reached by Estrada and Salas-Perez. The March 2010 custody agreement explicitly manifested Estrada's and Salas-Perez's shared intent as of March 2010 that the child spend most of the year with Estrada in Mexico, where she would attend school, and that she stay with Salas-Perez in Chicago only during school vacations. The agreement resolved the judicial proceeding that the Mexican court opened to adjudicate Salas-Perez's Hague Convention petition, which sought the child's return to Illinois; the agreement therefore manifested Salas-Perez's unequivocal understanding and intent that the child's principal residence be Mexico rather than Illinois.

Salas-Perez contended that the March 2010 custody agreement did not reflect her  true intent because it was signed out of fear that Estrada otherwise would have  prevented her from seeing the child. The contention was not without force, and had it  been made immediately after she signed the agreement, a close question would have been presented. But much water passed under the bridge between March 2010, when  the agreement was entered by the Mexican family court, and the summer of 2011;
during that time, Salas-Perez's actions plainly and unequivocally demonstrated that she shared an intent with Estrada that the child's habitual residence be Mexico. Salas-Perez sent the child back to Mexico after four visits to Illinois between  March 2010 and May 2011, reflecting her ratification and acceptance of the custody agreement even if it had been coerced at its inception.

The Court held that Estrada had rights of custody over the child  under Mexican law at the time of the August 2011 retention.. The custody agreement was entered by the Mexican family court in March 2010, and it required Salas-Perez to return the child to Mexico in August 2011 so the child could resume school there. Estrada's custody rights under Mexican law were beyond any reasonable dispute.

Salas-Perez also argued that Article 16 prohibited the Mexican court from deciding "the merits of rights of custody" while her Hague Convention petition was pending. Convention, art. 16 ("After receiving notice of a wrongful removal or retention of a child in the sense of Article 3, the judicial or administrative authorities of the Contracting State to which the child has been removed or in which it has been retained shall not decide on the merits of rights of custody until it has been determined that the child is not to be returned under this Convention or unless an application under this Convention is not lodged within a reasonable time following receipt of the notice."). The argument failed. The Mexican court that entered the March 2010 order was the very court before which Salas-Perez's Hague Convention petition was proceeding, and Salas-Perez expressly agreed to the entry of that order. Salas-Perez's submission that the Mexican court could not approve a custody agreement that she herself reached with Estrada could not be reconciled with Article 13(a), which excuses an otherwise wrongful removal or retention if "the person ... having the care of the ... child... had consented to or subsequently acquiesced in the removal or retention."Convention, art. 13(a)."[I]t is hard to think of a more formal acquiescence than entering into a consent order providing that the other parent be awarded custody ."

The Court held that Salas-Perez's retention of the child in Illinois breached Estrada's custody rights under the March 2010 custody order. By failing to send the child back to Mexico in August 2011, Salas-Perez deprived Estrada of his right to custody of the child during the school year. Estrada exercised and sought to exercise his rights of custody as of the time of retention. Estrada proved by a preponderance of the evidence that Salas-Perez's retention of the child in Illinois was wrongful under Article 3 of the Convention.

The court held that Salas-Perez did not prove grave risk by clear and convincing evidence. In July 2011, Salas-Perez brought the child to see Jennifer Lara, a licensed clinical professional counselor. Lara's written report of August 12, 2011, was admitted into evidence, and Lara testified at the evidentiary hearing.

On the parties' joint motion, the court appointed Dr. Hector Machabanski, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, as an expert under Federal Rule of Evidence 706. The parties agreed that the court could consider Dr. Machabanski's report without having to call him to testify. They also agreed that neither party would call the child to testify.

Janet required the child to eat food that had been put in a blender. The court credited Lara's unrebutted testimony that the child understood this to be a form of punishment. But the court also credited Estrada's unrebutted testimony that  a doctor in Mexico recommended that the child's food be blended in those instances when the child was experiencing trouble swallowing. The child told Dr. Machabanski that Janet hit her on the arm two or three times, once with a wooden spoon, and that Estrada once hit her on the bottom with a shoe. Lara's report noted that the child said that she had been hit on the arm with a wooden spoon, hit on the bottom (though by Janet, not by Estrada), and thrown onto the couch, but the report did not address the frequency of those physical episodes. Lara's report also noted that the child said that she was forced to eat spicy food without being given water or tea. Dr. Machabanski concluded that "the episodes of hitting in Mexico were rare and unusual events, not recurrent or part of a pattern of violence. Lara testified that she disagree with this conclusion. The court resolves this discrepancy in Dr. Machabanski's favor. Lara's report stated that the child "did not want to return to Mexico with her father ... and his family because they made her feel 'bad.' Lara opined at the hearing that returning the child to Mexico would place her at a grave risk of psychological harm in light of the hitting episodes and the child being required to eat blended food.

Dr. Machabanski's report indicated that when asked about how she was treated in Mexico, her response was 'they treated me well.' When asked about having any problems in Mexico, her answer was 'no.' Later she said that Janet disciplined her, yelled, and hit her. When asked about the hitting, [the child] showed a slight slap on the arm, adding that perhaps it was two or three times and that it was always in the arm and once it happened with a wooden spoon." The report further stated: "When asked about where she would like to live and with whom, [the child] said, 'I don't know' several times. Later, she added that it was a difficult question and that she would like to live with both parents." Dr. Machabanski's report concluded: "While hitting children is not acceptable or an appropriate way of managing or disciplining them, in terms of what is generally defined as child abuse ..., what [the child] seems to report about the incidents in Mexico do not seem to constitute significant or a serious pattern and do not seem to suggest that [the child] would be in any kind of grave risk if she were to return to Mexico. It is possible that the attention given to this matter and/or the reaction of others to the reports of hitting/abuse and other issues in this case would make [the child] highlight or tune into these matters more than might be appropriate. The hitting episodes seem rare and not severe, and [the child] seems to describe her overall life in Mexico as positive and desirable."

The court found Dr. Machabanski's conclusions regarding the risks of returning the child to Mexico more persuasive than Lara's conclusions. The evidence showed that there were a handful of physical episodes during the two years that Janet lived with Estrada and the child. While both Lara and Dr. Machabanski opined that physical discipline was unacceptable, the court agreed with Dr. Machabanski that the "rare and unusual" physical episodes-which in addition to being rare and unusual were not terribly severe when compared by the episodes described in reported Hague Convention cases, did not create a serious risk of physical or psychological harm, let alone a grave risk of such harm. The evidence also showed that the child was required to eat blended-up food on at least one occasion and perhaps others. That may seem unusual, but Estrada and Janet took this step on a physician's advice after the child experienced trouble with swallowing. If Estrada and Janet had not followed that advice, they might have been deemed grossly inattentive for allowing the child to be insufficiently nourished despite having received medical advice on how to address the child's swallowing problems. Their decision to follow the physician's advice could not be deemed to have placed the child at a grave risk of physical or psychological harm.