U.S. Supreme Court rules in Hague child abduction case, urges speed by lower courts in such cases.

• Author: Crook, John R.

In February 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Chafin v. Chafin (1) that a parent taking a child to a foreign country that a U.S. court has determined is the child's country of habitual residence does not render moot the other parent's appeal disputing that determination. (2) justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed a concurring opinion joined by justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer.

The Court's case syllabus summarizes the legal background.

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (3) requires the judicial or administrative authority of a Contracting State to order a child returned to her country of habitual residence if the authority finds that the child has been wrongfully removed to or retained in the Contracting State. The International Child Abduction Remedies Act 4 (ICARA) implements the Convention in the United States, granting federal and state courts concurrent jurisdiction over Convention actions and directing those courts to decide cases in accordance with the Convention. ICARA also requires defendants to pay various expenses incurred by plaintiffs associated with the return of children. (5) U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Jeffrey Chafin married Lynne Chafin, the respondent, a Scot, in Germany. They had a daughter. Following his deployment to Afghanistan and her sojourn in Scotland, they eventually reunited in Alabama, where he filed for divorce and child custody. Ms. Chafin subsequently filed a petition under the Hague Convention and ICARA seeking the daughter's return to Scotland. The district court ruled that Scotland was the child's country of habitual residence and granted the mother's petition. She immediately left for Scotland with the child. The father appealed the district court's order, but the Eleventh Circuit dismissed his appeal as moot on the theory that, once the child returned to Scotland, U.S. courts were powerless to grant relief. (6)

Much of Chief justice John Roberts's opinion involves U.S. domestic law bearing on mootness. The Court concluded that the case was not moot because significant issues remained in dispute, including Ms. Chafin's effort to enforce a district court order directing her husband to pay expenses of $94,000 incurred in connection with the child's return to Scotland. The Court stressed that mootness differed from whether a court was able to grant effective relief:

At this point in the ongoing dispute, Mr. Chafin seeks reversal of the District...