Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_07-cv-05535/USCOURTS-cand-5_07-cv-05535-13/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 28:1331 Fed. Question

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Case No. C 07-5535 JF

ORDER DETERMINING HABITUAL RESIDENCE OF MINOR CHILD

(JFLC3)

**E-Filed 4/19/10**

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN JOSE DIVISION

DESPINA ASVESTA,

 Petitioner,

 v.

GEORGE PETROUTSAS,

 Respondent.

Case Number C 07-5535 JF

ORDER DETERMINING 1

HABITUAL RESIDENCE OF

MINOR CHILD

The instant action arises from a child custody dispute between Petitioner Despina Asvesta

(“Mother”) and Respondent George Petroutsas (“Father”) that has persisted for nearly the entirety

of the life of their minor child, A. Before the Court is Mother’s petition under the Hague

Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (“Hague Convention”) and the

International Child Abduction Remedies Act (“ICARA”), 42 U.S.C. § 11603 et seq. (“Hague

petition”). Father, whose own Hague petition was denied by a Greek court, opposes Mother’s

petition. The Court has considered the parties’ briefs as well as the additional evidence

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All footnotes within this excerpt are from the Ninth Circuit opinion; however, the 2

footnote numbers have been changed to remain consistent with the rest of this order. 

The parties dispute the existence of other factors, including infidelity and abuse, that may 3

have led to the failure of their marriage. These allegations are, for the most part, irrelevant to this

appeal. To the extent that allegations of abuse are relevant, we take note of them as appropriate.

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(JFLC3)

submitted and the oral argument of counsel presented at the hearing on January 26, 2010. 

Because the Court now determines that for purposes of the Hague Convention A’s country of

habitual residence is the United States, Mother’s petition will be denied.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The Ninth Circuit summarized the relevant factual and procedural background of the

instant petition in its published opinion in Asvesta v. Petroutsas, 580 F.3d 1000 (9th Cir. 2009),

as follows:2

George Petroutsas, a Greek and American dual citizen, and Despina

Asvesta, a Greek citizen, married in Watsonville, California on March 10, 2002. In

January 2003, the couple settled in Capitola, California. Two years later, Asvesta

bore a son (the “child”), the couple’s only child. According to Petroutsas, the

couple never lived together in Greece. Nonetheless, the child, like his father, is a

Greek and American dual citizen and was raised to speak both English and Greek

fluently.

By the end of 2005, the couple’s marriage had begun to deteriorate due to

the couple’s diverging goals for their life together. Specifically, Asvesta wanted to 3

return to Greece; Petroutsas wanted to stay in the United States. A lengthy e-mail

from Petroutsas to Asvesta, dated November 2, 2005, pleaded, “This place

[California] is where we must be right now, it makes sense for us, I’m not asking

you to like it here . . . . Let us start making right moves together both personally

and economically, let me gradually open a chapter of my life in Greece . . . let [the

child] grow a little older.” The e-mail concluded:

If you don’t agree with the above, to go to Greece slowly, calmer and

smarter than giving up everything and leaving, I have to ask you for

a divorce, and we won’t be neither the first or last. Go to Greece

with the child and we will see how I will come to Greece to visit

him. I know you neither want or ask for this, but how you have

brought these issues to me, this is how you have caused me to react.

On November 8, 2005, with the written consent of Petroutsas, Asvesta and

the child, not yet six months old, left for Greece to visit family. Petroutsas’ consent

stated, “I hereby consent to Despina Asvesta Petroutsas to travel with our son . . .

between the following dates[:] November 8, 2005-December 8, 2005.”

Petroutsas maintains that Asvesta told him on November 19 that she was not

returning from Greece, a fact Asvesta denies. In any event, on November 29,

before his consent expired, Petroutsas called Asvesta in Greece to advise her that he

had reported her to authorities in the United States for abducting the child. The

following day–while Asvesta and the child were in Greece–Petroutsas filed a

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Although the California court in its order used terms that ring of a Hague Convention 4

proceeding, Petroutsas did not seek relief from the California court pursuant to the Hague

Convention or ICARA.

 The Hague Convention requires each contracting state to designate a “Central

5

Authority” to “coordinate and ‘channel’” the cooperation among contracting states that the

Convention envisions. [Elisa] Pérez-Vera[, Hague Conference on Private International Law]

437, ¶ 42 [(1982)]; see also Hague Convention, art. 6. “The Central Authority of the State where

[a wrongfully removed or retained] child is shall take . . . all appropriate measures in order to

obtain the voluntary return of the child.” Id. art. 10. If a Central Authority receives a petition

concerning a child not located in that country, “it shall directly and without delay transmit the

application to the Central Authority of that Contracting State [where the child is located] and

inform that Contracting State and inform the requesting Central Authority or the applicant.” Id.

art. 9.

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ORDER DETERMINING HABITUAL RESIDENCE OF MINOR CHILD

(JFLC3)

petition for dissolution of marriage in the Superior Court of California, County of

Santa Cruz (the “California court”). Petroutsas also sought custody of the child.

After a hearing at which Asvesta’s counsel was present, the California court granted

Petroutsas temporary custody of the child. 

Asvesta alleges that while she was still in Greece, and before her scheduled

date of return from Greece, the Greek police discovered a suitcase left by Petroutsas

in Asvesta’s family’s home containing a gun, handcuffs, leg cuffs, credit cards, a

pillow, telephone wires, and bullets. According to Asvesta, the discovery of these

items prompted her on December 5, 2005, to file for divorce against Petroutsas in

the Athens Multimember Court of First Instance (“Athens Multimember Court”)

and to file for temporary custody of the child with the Athens One-Member Court

of First Instance (“Athens One-Member Court”). On December 9, 2005, the Athens

One-Member Court issued an injunction granting Asvesta temporary custody of the

child and scheduling a hearing on the custody petition for January 9, 2006. That

hearing was later postponed.

Back in California, on January 25, 2006, after proceedings in which Asvesta

was again represented by counsel, the California court found that the child’s

habitual residence was Santa Cruz County, California, and concluded that it had

jurisdiction to hear the case. The court entered a permanent modifiable order 4

granting Petroutsas sole legal and physical custody of the child and ordering

Asvesta to return the child to Petroutsas “immediately.”

Hague Proceedings in Greece

On February 20, 2006, with the California custody order in place, Petroutsas

filed a Hague petition for the return of the child to the United States with the United

States Central Authority. The petition alleged that Asvesta had wrongfully 5

retained the child in Greece in violation of Petroutsas’ custody rights. The United

States Central Authority transferred Petroutsas’ petition to Greece’s Central

Authority. Although the record does not detail how Greece’s Central Authority

handled the petition, it was eventually filed with the Piraeus One-Member Court of

First Instance (the “Greek Hague court”). The Athens Multimember court, where

Asvesta filed her custody proceeding, stayed that matter pending resolution of the

Hague petition pursuant to Article 16 of the Convention.

On March 23, 2006, the Greek Hague court held a hearing on Petroutsas’

petition. Both parties voluntarily appeared. According to Asvesta, the parties had

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An official translation of the Greek court’s ruling is attached as an appendix to this 6

opinion. [Note: not included in this order.]

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(JFLC3)

notice of the hearing, were represented by counsel, and were provided with the

opportunity to be heard and participate fully through counsel. Petroutsas, on the

other hand, alleges that, although a non-lawyer representative of the Greek Ministry

of Justice appeared to pursue Petroutsas’ petition on his behalf, neither Petroutsas

nor his personal lawyer were permitted to speak or testify. Petroutsas argues that

the appointed representative was not familiar with the facts of the case and did not

adequately represent his interests at the hearing.

The following day, on March 24, 2006, the Greek court issued an order

dismissing Petroutsas’ petition for the return of the child, concluding that it was

“not bound to order the minor’s return to the USA.” App. at 58. The Greek court

6

found the following pertinent facts:

• Petroutsas had assured Asvesta that their “stay in the USA was

temporary and that soon they would go back to Greece for

permanent settlement.”

• Asvesta had to obtain supplemental employment because

Petroutsas’ job as a real estate broker “yielded a very low income

which was not enough to deal with his and the respondent’s

livelihood needs.”

• Since 2004, Petroutsas had “bec[o]me violent towards the

respondent, making scenes, . . . talking bad to her, . . . swearing at

her and insulting her before third parties, and was inexcusably absent

from their house.”

• After the birth of the child, Petroutsas “was indifferent to his

conjugal and family obligations and was making bad scenes before

the eyes of the minor.”

• The couple had no “mental communication and physical contact”

starting in September 2005 and communicated via e-mail because

Petroutsas refused to talk to Asvesta.

• Petroutsas had made particular demands regarding any move he

would make to Greece, and told Asvesta that if she did not agree, he

would be forced to ask for a divorce.

• Petroutsas “suggested” to Asvesta that she “go to Greece together

with their minor child and that he would go there to see” the child.

• Petroutsas consented to Asvesta’s departure with the child on

November 8, 2005, and gave Asvesta “permission to travel together

with their son during the period of time from 8 November, 2005 to 8

December, 2005” and that Asvesta had arranged to return to the

United States with her child and her parents for the Christmas

holidays.

• Petroutsas reported Asvesta to the authorities on November 29,

2005, and threatened Asvesta that she would go to jail and never see

the child again.

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The cassation appeal is apparently still pending. One member of the Greek Supreme 7

Court, however, issued an opinion on whether to accept the appeal. That opinion stated that the

Greek court that ruled on the Hague petition had erred as a matter of law because it did not

follow the procedural rules of evidence at the Hague hearing. Stilianos testified that the Greek

Supreme Court would likely overturn the Greek Hague court’s order and remand for a new

hearing and that the court would likely issue a decision in the cassation appeal by April 2008.

Although Petroutsas’ Hague petition was filed in the Piraeus One-Member Court of First 8

Instance, this proceeding, it appears, was completely separate from the Greek Hague proceeding;

two different judges presided over the two matters.

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Case No. C 07-5535 JF

ORDER DETERMINING HABITUAL RESIDENCE OF MINOR CHILD

(JFLC3)

• Petroutsas had been unfaithful to Asvesta since December 2004.

App. at 54-56.

The Greek court concluded that the child had not been “illegal[ly]” removed

to and retained in Greece by his mother because (1) “Petroutsas . . . consented . . . to

his move and stay in Greece, giving for this purpose to [Asvesta] a related written

permission and suggesting to her to stay in Greece together with the minor;” (2)

“Petroutsas was not virtually exercising the right of custody of the person of the

minor at the time of his move, since . . . he was indifferent to his family

obligations, he was not engaged in the minor’s care and was indifferent to his

pyschosomatic [sic] development;” and (3) there was

a severe danger that the minor’s return to the USA to [sic] expose

him to mental tribulation, since he will be deprived of his mother’s

presence, affection, love and care at the delicate age of 12 months,

he will be deprived of the security and stability that he feels near his

mother and his mental bond with her will be broken.

App. at 57-58.

Petroutsas did not appeal this ruling because, he alleges, the appointed

representative from the Greek Ministry of Justice failed to do so. As a result, the

Greek court’s factual findings remain unchallenged. Petroutsas, however, did file a

“cassation appeal.” According to the district court testimony of Grigoriou Stilianos,

Petroutsas’ Greek legal advisor, a cassation appeal is a limited procedural challenge

that allows a party to appeal only the legal conclusions of the lower court.

7

After the Greek Hague court denied Petroutsas’ petition, he filed a petition

in the Athens Multimember Court custody case seeking visitation with the child in

Greece. While this petition and Asvesta’s original custody petition were pending,

the parties, through counsel, entered into a voluntary settlement agreement

establishing a schedule pursuant to which Petroutsas could visit the child in Greece.

Petroutsas also filed a petition in the Piraeus One-Member Court of the First

Instance seeking recognition of the California court’s original January 25, 2006, 8

order that granted him temporary custody of the child. On March 13, 2007, the

court declined to do so, and its order was affirmed by the Piraeus Court of Appeal.

On April 23, 2007, the Athens One-Member Court finally held a hearing to

consider Asvesta’s original petition for custody of the child and Petroutsas’ petition

for visitation rights. The court awarded temporary custody to Asvesta and granted

Petroutsas supervised visitation in Greece. A month later, however, the California

court modified its prior order, granted temporary sole custody of the child to

Petroutsas, and ordered the parties to mediate their custody and visitation dispute in

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Greece.

In July 2007, during supervised visitation with his son, Petroutsas took the

child, fled from Greece to Canada and then returned to California where, as far as

the record reflects, the child remains to this day. Petroutsas asserts that he took the

child from Greece under the authority of the California court order that granted him

sole legal and physical custody of the child. Asvesta, on the other hand, viewed

Petroutsas’ action as an abduction, reported the abduction to the Greek police, filed

charges with the Greek police against Petroutsas for kidnapping, and filed a petition

for the return of the child to Greece under the Hague Convention in the U.S.

District Court for the Northern District of California.

Hague Proceedings in the United States

Asvesta filed her Hague petition on October 31, 2007, asserting that

Petroutsas had abducted the child from Greece, the child’s habitual residence. The

court issued an order to show cause for Petroutsas to appear on November 16, 2007,

with the child; Petroutsas did not appear. After the court issued a warrant for

Petroutsas’ arrest and placed the child in the national database for missing persons,

Petroutsas appeared with counsel and the child for a show cause hearing. 

Following an evidentiary hearing and after encouraging the parties to reach a

voluntary settlement agreement, the district court orally granted Asvesta’s petition. 

In so ruling, the court determined that the initial question it faced was

“simply, whether it should or shouldn’t recognize and accord comity to the Hague

order entered by the courts of Greece.” The court, in its brief discussion of whether

the “Greek court faithfully applied the Hague convention,” observed that “the

Hague order entered in Greece could be criticized as giving undue weight to matters

that are not properly considered under the Hague convention.”

Nonetheless, the court stated that “[i]f all this court had before it were the

Hague order from Greece and if [Petroutsas] had faithfully carried out his

responsibilities as a litigant with respect to that and other orders, I think this would

be a much harder case as a legal matter than it actually is.” The court was

“compell[ed]” by Petroutsas’ failure to comply with both the Greek Hague

Convention order and the California court’s order to mediate custody and visitation

issues in Greece, describing the circumstances as “simply a situation where the two

countries or the two courts that have exercised jurisdiction over this child both

made orders, both which have been violated by Mr. Petroutsas.” The court

concluded that “under both circumstances [it had] no legal choice other than to

grant the petition.”

On January 17, 2008, the district court ordered that the child be returned to

Greece, “the minor child’s habitual residence,” but simultaneously ordered a stay of

the child’s return pending appeal.

580 F.3d at 1005-09. 

The Ninth Circuit concluded that the Greek court’s decision was not entitled to comity,

holding that the Greek court’s “failure to comply with the Hague Convention was so egregious”

that comity should not have been extended. Id. at 1021. The panel remanded the case to this

Court “to conduct its own analysis of the merits of Asvesta’s Hague petition, specifically the

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Following remand, this Court extended the parental access schedule (“Access Order”) 9

originally entered on January 17, 2008. The Access Order has remained in effect pending

resolution of the instant petition. The Court also vacated its order awarding costs to Petitioner. 

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Case No. C 07-5535 JF

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(JFLC3)

habitual residence determination.” Id.9

II. DISCUSSION

As the petitioner, Mother bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence

that Father “wrongfully removed” A. from Greece to the United States in July 2007. See, e.g., In

re Pervot, 59 F.3d 556, 560 (6th Cir. 1995); ICARA, 42 U.S.C. § 11601(e)(1)(A). Under Article

3 of the Hague Convention removal is wrongful if:

a) it is in breach of rights of custody attributed to a person, an institution or any

other body, either jointly or alone, under the law of the State in which the child was

habitually resident immediately before the removal or retention; and

b) at the time of removal or retention those rights were actually exercised, either

jointly or alone, or would have been so exercised but for the removal or retention.

Hague Convention, art. 3 (emphasis added). The Second Circuit has explained the legal

consequences of finding wrongful removal:

The Convention contemplates that any wrongful removal (or retention) will be

remedied by an order for return so that the issue of custody can be properly

determined by a court of competent jurisdiction. See Elisa Perez Vera, Explanatory

Report: Hague Conference on Private International Law, in 3 Acts and Documents

of the Fourteenth Session ¶ 19 (1980) . . . . As the Perez Vera Report states, “the

Convention rests implicitly upon the principle that any debate on merits of the

question, i.e., of custody rights, should take place before the competent authorities

in the State where the child had its habitual residence prior to its removal.”

 

Diorinou v. Mezitis, 237 F.3d 133, 145 (2d Cir. 2001); see also Holder v. Holder, 392 F.3d 1009,

1013 (9th Cir. 2004) (“The Convention’s focus is . . . whether a child should be returned to a

country for custody proceedings and not what the outcome of those proceedings should be.”

(emphasis in original)).

The Ninth Circuit has held that courts applying Article 3 are required to answer a series of

four questions: 

(1) When did the removal or retention at issue take place? (2) Immediately prior to

the removal or retention, in which state was the child habitually resident? (3) Did

the removal or retention breach the rights of custody attributed to the petiioner

under the law of the habitual residence? (4) Was the petitioner exercising those

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rights at the time of the removal or retention?

Mozes v. Mozes, 239 F.3d 1067, 1070 (9th Cir. 2001). Here, as in Mozes, there is no dispute as

to the first question: the removal or retention at issue in Mother’s petition is Father’s removal of

A. from Greece in July 2007. However, as in many such cases, “the crux of the issue” is whether

A.’s habitual residence immediately prior to the removal was Greece or the United States. 

Holder, 392 F.3d at 1014. If A.’s country of habitual residence was the United States, the Court

must deny Mother’s petition, even if aspects of Father’s conduct in seeking A.’s return were

objectionable. Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1084. (“Should the district court . . . reaffirm its holding that

the children’s habitual residence had shifted to the United States by April 17, 1998, the case

should end there.”) Only if Greece was A.’s habitual residence in July 2007 must the Court

address the Mozes court’s final two questions, as only then could the removal be “wrongful”

under Article 3. Id. 

A. A.’s Country of Habitual Residence

While the Ninth Circuit has recognized that “[t]he place of birth is not automatically the

child’s habitual residence,” “if a child is born where the parents have their habitual residence, the

child normally should be regarded as a habitual resident of that country.” Holder, 392 F.3d at

1020 (citations omitted). Evidence adduced at the 2007 hearing demonstrates that Mother and

Father lived in California together from February 2002 until November 2005, were employed,

were married, owned a home and had family there, and returned there after trips to Greece. 

Mother also filed for permanent residency in the United States. As the Ninth Circuit recognized

in Mozes, “Being habitually resident in a place must mean that you are, in some sense, ‘settled’

there–but it need not mean that’s where you plan to leave your bones.” Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1075. 

 Based on the facts in the record, despite Mother’s statement in her affidavit that her stay

in California was intended to be “an extended temporary stay,” (Doc. No. 163 ¶ 6) and that the

parents had agreed and “intended to return to Greece to begin [their] lives together and to

establish [their] permanent home in Greece” (id.), the Court finds by a preponderance of the

evidence that California was their habitual residence when A. was born in May 2005, and thus

was A’s habitual residence as well. Through her actions, Mother, at least for the time being, had

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abandoned Greece as her place of habitual residence sometime before A.’s birth, even though it

appears to be clear that she did not intend to “leave [her] bones” in California. See Mozes, 239

F.3d at 1075 (“[O]ne need not have this settled intention [to abandon the habitual residence left

behind] at the moment of departure; it could coalesce during the course of a stay abroad

originally intended to be temporary. Nor need the intention be expressly declared, if it is

manifest from one’s actions; indeed one’s actions may belie any declaration that no abandonment

was intended.”) 

Mother nonetheless contends that A.’s country of residence had changed to Greece by the

time Father took A. back to the United States in July 2007. The Ninth Circuit has established the

following test for determining whether a child’s habitual residence has changed:

First, in order to acquire a new habitual residence, there must be a settled intention

to abandon the one left behind. . . . Second there must be (A) an actual change in

geography combined with (B) the passage of an appreciable period of time. This

period of time must be sufficient for acclimatization.

Holder, 392 F.3d at 1015. The parties’ dispute involves the first half of this formulation.

1. Settled Intention to Abandon

To determine whether there was a settled intention to abandon one habitual residence for

another, courts must “look to the subjective intent of the parents, not the children” as “[p]arental

intent acts as a surrogate for that of children who have not yet reached a stage in their development

where they are deemed capable of making autonomous decisions as to their residence.” Id. at

1016-17 (citing Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1076-78.). The Ninth Circuit acknowledged in Holder that

when, as here, the “parents no longer agree on where the children’s habitual residence has been

fixed, we must look beyond the representations of the parties and consider ‘all available

evidence.’” Id. at 1017 (citing Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1076).

Mozes divided cases in which a child’s parents cannot agree on habitual residence into

“three broad categories”:

On one side are cases where the court finds that the family as a unit has

manifested a settled purpose to change habitual residence, despite the fact that one

parent may have had qualms about the move. . . . When courts find that a family has

jointly taken all the steps associated with abandoning habitual residence in one

country to take it up in another, they are generally unwilling to let one parent’s

alleged reservations about the move stand in the way of finding a shared and settled

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purpose.

On the other side are cases where the child’s initial translocation from an

established habitual residence was clearly intended to be of a specific, delimited

period. In these cases, courts have generally refused to find that the changed

intentions of one parent led to an alteration in the child’s habitual residence. 

In between are cases where the petitioning parent had earlier consented to let

the child stay abroad for some period of ambiguous duration. Sometimes the

circumstances surrounding the child’s stay are such that, despite the lack of perfect

consensus, the court finds the parents to have shared a settled mutual intent that the

stay last indefinitely. When this is the case, we can reasonably infer a mutual

abandonment of the child’s prior habitual residence. Other times, however,

circumstances are such that, even though the exact length of the stay was left open to

negotiation, the court is able to find no settled mutual intent from which

abandonment can be inferred.

Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1076-77 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added).

The facts here are most analogous to the second set of cases described in Mozes. When

Mother took A. to Greece in November 2005, she presented immigration authorities with a note

signed by Father consenting to a trip “between the following dates, November 8, 2005, through

December 8, 2005.” (Pet’r Trial Ex. 4.) It is not clear when or why Mother decided to stay in

Greece with A. beyond December 8, 2005. What is clear from all of the available evidence,

including the fact that in late November 2005 Father initiated an action in the Santa Cruz Superior

Court to obtain custody rights, is that Mother and Father did not share the intent to abandon the

United States as A.’s habitual residence at the time of Mother’s departure–the time of “the child’s

initial translocation” from the United States. 

The instant facts clearly are not analogous to the first type of case described in Mozes, as

neither party alleges that Mother and Father have ever “jointly taken all the steps associated with

abandoning habitual residence in” the United States. With respect to the third type of case, even if

the Court were to find that the length of Mother’s visit to Greece with A. in November 2005 was

“left open to negotiation” despite the signed form consenting travel for a limited period of time,

the evidence is insufficient to support a finding of mutual intent that the stay would be indefinite. 

2. Objective Facts Supporting Abandonment

Mozes held that “[w]here there is no such [shared] intent [to abandon the child’s prior

habitual residence] . . . a prior habitual residence should be deemed supplanted only where ‘the

objective facts point unequivocally’ to this conclusion.” Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1082 (citing Zenel v.

Haddow, 1993 S.L.T. 975, 979 (Scot. 1st Div.)) (emphasis added). Mother proffers as such

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objective facts Father’s purported consent to A.’s living in Greece and to the custody jurisdiction

of the Greek courts. (See Pet’r Pre-Hearing Memo. 4.) 

Mother argues in essence that even if he did not agree to A.’s relocation initially, by coming

to Greece, participating in Greek court actions and engaging in custody negotiations in Greece

outside of the formal Hague proceeding, Father consented or “subsequently acquiesced” to the

change in A.’s habitual residence. This argument is unpersuasive, for several reasons. 

First, “subsequent acquiescence” is a defense, or exception, under Article 13 of the Hague

Convention available to a respondent after the Court determines that a wrongful removal or

retention has occurred. Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1086 (“Should the district court find a wrongful

retention to have occurred, it must make a prompt determination as to whether either of [Article

13’s] exceptions is applicable and, if not, order the return of the children to Israel forthwith.”

(footnote omitted)). Here, Mother bears the burden of proving that Greece is the country of

habitual residence and is not entitled to the defenses provided in Article 13 in trying to prove

wrongful removal or retention. 

Second, even assuming that Mother could rely upon a finding of Father’s “subsequent

acquiescence” to establish an abandonment of the United States as A.’s country of habitual

residence, the record does not support such a finding. Father began his legal efforts to obtain

custody in California almost immediately after Mother left for Greece and has continued to seek

A.’s return through both Hague proceedings and family-law proceedings in the Greek courts. As

Mozes observed with regard to the father’s similar efforts there, “Given that he has litigated

continually for the children’s return since [the time of the retention], he obviously has not

‘subsequently acquiesced’ in their retention.” Id. at n.57.

Third, Mother’s argument that Father’s decision to travel to Greece and participate in the

Greek custody proceedings had the legal effect of supplanting the United States’s as A.’s habitual

residence does not make practical sense. The effect of her argument is that Father would have a

stronger case now if he had refused to participate in any proceedings in Greece or unilaterally had

taken A. back to California in January 2006 rather than July 2007.

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Nothing in this Order should be read as ignoring or condoning the means Father 10

ultimately employed to return A. to the United States in 2007, or as a lack of understanding on

the part of this Court of Mother’s concern about other aspects of Father’s conduct toward her. 

However, these matters are immaterial to the instant legal determination. See, e.g., Asvesta, 580

F.3d at 1016 (“While Asvesta may have experienced trying circumstances in her marriage to

Petroutsas, these circumstances are not the proper focus of a Hague Convention inquiry.”);

Holder, 392 F.3d at 1013 (“The Convention’s focus is thus whether a child should be returned to

a country for custody proceedings and not what the outcome of those proceedings should be.”). 

Moreover, to the extent that Father’s alleged misconduct was considered by the Greek Hague

court in granting Mother’s petition there, the Ninth Circuit’s rejection of the Greek court’s

analysis has preclusive effect here. 

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B. Breach and Exercise of Mother’s Custody Rights

Because the Court concludes that Petitioner has not met her burden of demonstrating that

A.’s habitual residence had shifted to Greece by July 2007, the Court need not address Article 3’s

other requirements for, or Article 13’s exceptions or defenses to, wrongful removal. See Mozes,

239 F.3d at 1084 (holding that if the district court finds that the children’s habitual residence was

the United States, the country in which they were allegedly wrongfully retained, “the case should

end there”). 

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Court concludes that the United States is A.’s country of

habitual residence. Accordingly, Mother’s Hague petition is denied. The Access Order shall

remain in effect for sixty (60) days in order to permit Mother to seek relief in the Santa Cruz

Superior Court, and to permit an orderly transition with respect to A.’s legal status.

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IT IS SO ORDERED. 

DATED: 4/19/10

 ________________________

JEREMY FOGEL

United States District Judge

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