In Smith v Smith, --- F.3d ----, 2020 WL 5742023 (5th Cir., 2020) Colin David Smith filed a petition under the Hague Convention asserting that Sarah Elizabeth Smith wrongfully removed their children from Argentina to Texas. The district court denied the father’s petition because it determined that Argentina was not the children’s habitual residence. The Fifth Circuit affirmed.
Colin Smith and Sarah Smith married in 2008 and had four children. After several moves within the United States, the family moved to Argentina in June 2017. The couple separated in May 2018 and jointly petitioned an Argentinian court for divorce. That court’s divorce decree provided for the parents’ shared custody. Sarah removed the children to Texas in July 2019, with Colin’s permission, to attend a funeral, but t she remained in the United States with the children. Colin filed a lawsuit seeking the children’s return to Argentina in the United States District Court on October 1, 2019. The district court held a bench trial in which Colin argued that a foreign custody order and the provisions thereof, combined with the length of time the children lived in Argentina, determined that Argentina was the children’s habitual residence. He also testified, however, that there was no objective evidence showing a shared intention to permanently move to Argentina. Sarah pointed to the fact that none of the children had ever left the United States before moving to Argentina, certain provisions in Colin’s work contract, the children’s attendance at an American school in Argentina, and her own continued ownership of inherited property in Texas as evidence that Argentina was not the children’s habitual residence. She further testified that Colin had reassured her that the move to Argentina was only for two years and that they would use the money he earned there to pay for a house in the United States. A close family friend also testified at the hearing that neither party ever represented that they intended to permanently abandon the United States by moving to Argentina and that they always spoke of the move as temporary.
The district court then issued an order denying the return of the children to Argentina, determining that the facts supported the conclusion that none of the children habitually resided in Argentina. Specifically, the district court found: both parents and all the children were born in the United States and continued to be United States citizens; Colin was eligible to apply for Argentinian citizenship and did not do so; Colin’s work contract was at will, contained provisions for “home leave” which referred to the United States, specifically San Francisco, and provided for a 24-month housing allowance; the parties brought all of their personal belongings with them to Argentina, but Sarah continued to own, and Colin was aware of, land in Texas that she inherited prior to the move abroad; the parties chose to sign a two-year lease in Argentina rather than purchase a residence; all four children were enrolled in an “American style” school in Buenos Aires; none of the parties own any property or have any family members in Argentina; Sarah does not now qualify for anything other than an Argentinian tourist visa, which would only allow her to stay in the country for up to three months. The district court also found that the oldest two children were of sufficient age and maturity to object to being sent back to Argentina, and that they did object.
Colin filed this appeal in which he contended that the district court erroneously applied a “shared intent” standard for determining the habitual residence of the children instead of a “totality of the circumstances” standard. It was Colin’s position that the Argentinian divorce decree was dispositive in that its shared custody provisions can practically be implemented only in Argentina.
The Fifth Circuit observed that before Monasky, the Fifth Circuit adopted an approach that looked to the parents’ “shared intent” as a threshold test for determining a child’s habitual residence. This was the approach the district court used to arrive at its determination in this case. While this appeal was pending, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Monasky that the correct approach to habitual residence is to examine the totality of the circumstances. 140 S. Ct. at 730. Once this standard is identified, a court need only apply that standard to determine if a child was at home in the country from which the child was removed. This is a fact-intensive analysis that “should be judged on appeal by a clear-error review.” Therefore, it reviewed the district court’s determination for clear error, but under a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis.
It observed that the Supreme Court held in Monasky that “a child’s habitual residence depends on the totality of the circumstances specific to the case.” It also held that a child’s “residence in a particular country can be deemed ‘habitual’ ... only when her residence there is more than transitory.”
The district court, in keeping with what was then-binding Fifth Circuit precedent, began with the parents’ shared intent before moving onto a “fact-intensive determination that necessarily varies with the circumstances of each case.” However, as was the case in Monasky, the district court had determined and considered all the relevant facts. After doing so, it decided that Colin, as petitioner, did not meet his burden of establishing habitual residency. Finding no clear error with the district court’s factual findings and examining those findings under the totality of the circumstances, it held that Argentina was ot the children’s habitual residence.
Following the example set in Monasky, it did not remand for the district court to reconsider because to do so would “consume time when swift resolution is the Convention’s objective,” and there was no indication that “the District Court would appraise the facts differently on remand.” Monasky, 140 S. Ct. at 731. Likewise, counsel agreed at oral argument that a remand was unnecessary. Instead, because we are unable to find any clear error with the district court’s findings of fact, it applied the totality-of-the-circumstances standard established in Monasky to the district court’s factual findings. Because the totality of the circumstances showed that the children did not habitually reside in Argentina, it affirmed.
In a footnote it pointed out that in light of the Supreme Court’s holding in Monasky that a child’s habitual residence should be determined by looking to the totality of the circumstances, to the extent that its prior caselaw in Larbie and other cases has prioritized the parents’ shared intent over other factors, it overruled that emphasis.
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