Rosasen v Rosasen, 2023 WL 128617, Not Reported in Fed. Rptr. (9th Circuit, 2023) - [Norway][Habitual residence][Petition granted]

    In Rosasen v Rosasen, 2023 WL 128617 Not Reported in Fed. Rptr.,  (9^th Circuit, 2023) Marlon Abraham Rosasen appealed the district court’s judgment in favor of Thea Marie Rosasen on her petition under the Hague Convention.

 

    The Ninth Circuit held that the district court properly exercised its broad discretion in deciding that an evidentiary hearing was not necessary because the parties presented evidence and argument and received a meaningful opportunity to be heard. Colchester v. Lazaro, 16 F.4th 712, 729 (9th Cir. 2021) (courts “are accordingly vested with broad discretion to fashion appropriate procedures”). It held that the district court did not clearly err in finding that Norway was the habitual residence of the parties’ children. See Monasky v. Taglieri, 140 S. Ct. 719, 723 (2020) (habitual residence determination is reviewed for clear error). Any agreement between the parents to raise the children in the United States was not dispositive. The district court properly found that the children were “at home” in Norway because they attended daycare there, the majority of their close relatives lived there, and they had close relationships with Thea Rosasen’s parents and other family members in Norway who helped to care for them. It also held that the district court properly found that the exception to the remedy of return set forth in Hague Convention Article 13(a) did not apply because Thea Rosasen did not consent to the children’s relocation to the United States. See Asvesta v. Petroutsas, 580 F.3d 1000, 1004 (9th Cir. 2009) (itemizing consent or subsequent acquiescence as one exception to the Hague Convention’s “rule of return”). It also held that arlon Rosasen did not establish that the district court’s grant of the petition violated his fundamental rights under Hague Convention Article 20. See Hague International Child Abduction Convention; Text and Analysis, 51 Fed. Reg. 10,494, 10,510 (Mar. 26, 1986) (advising that the Article 20 exception is to be “invoked only on the rare occasion that return of a child would utterly shock the conscience of the court or offend all notions of due process”).