Opinion ID: 1649440
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Reprehensible Conduct As a Basis for Declining Jurisdiction

Text: Dr. Bakhaty further contends that the trial court should have declined jurisdiction under the UCCJA based on the negative inference drawn when Ms. Amin's wrongfully removed the minor child from Egypt without his permission. La.Rev. Stat. § 13:1707(A) provides that [i]f the petitioner for an initial decree has wrongfully taken the child from another state or has engaged in similar reprehensible conduct the court may decline to exercise jurisdiction if this is just and proper under the circumstances. Dr. Bakhaty argues that the lower courts' decision effectively condones the unilateral conduct of this mother, and encourages the continued potential exercise of self-help in contravention of the UCCJA's purpose to deter abductions or other unilateral removals of children undertaken to obtain custody awards. See La.Rev.Stat. § 13:1700(5). Dr. Bakhaty's argument ignores the trial court's factual finding that Ms. Amin did not wrongfully remove the child from Egypt or engage in any other reprehensible conduct. [19] The trial court found that Ms. Amin intended to visit Dr. Bakhaty and her family when she left Egypt. At the time she left Egypt, there were no custody proceedings pending anywhere. When Ms. Amin finally talked with Dr. Bakhaty in mid-December, he agreed to come to Baton Rouge to see her and Ahmed, but in fact, he actually had no intention of coming under the circumstances. Instead, while she and Ahmed waited for him in Baton Rouge, he flew to Egypt to confirm his suspicions about her removing Ahmed without his permission and without proper travel documents. It was only after Ms. Amin discovered from her father sometime in early January that Dr. Bakhaty was in Egypt investigating her actions for the purpose of bringing charges against her that she initiated court proceedings for divorce, custody, and support in Louisiana. We find no manifest error in the trial court's credibility conclusion that Ms. Amin's intent when she came to the United States with Ahmed was not to abscond with the child, stay in this country, divorce her husband, and get custody of their child, as Dr. Bakhaty maintains. The fluid nature of her intentions on remaining in the U.S. were further evidenced by her willingness to return to Egypt during the proceedings. At the hearing on March 9, 2000, both parties were willing to stipulate that Ms. Amin would return to Egypt with Ahmed and continue to care for him there, if the criminal sentence against her could be dismissed and if certain support arrangements could be made. As the court of appeal recognized, these on-the-record discussions ... apparently never reached fruition, but they belie Dr. Bakhaty's assertion that Ms. Amin's intentions were dishonorable or her conduct reprehensible. Thus, the court of appeal correctly found the trial court's factual conclusion concerning her initial intent and motivation to be supported by the record and not clearly wrong. The court of appeal summarized the unique circumstances presented in this case as follows: It does not involve a parent taking a child from the country in which the other parent resides. Rather, it involves a parent bringing a child to the country where the other parent resides. This is an important difference. As a result of the court's judgment in this case, Ahmed lives with his mother in the United States, the country where both of his parents now live, rather than living with one parent in Egypt, while the other lives in the United States. Based on these circumstances, we agree with lower courts' decision to exercise residual jurisdiction in the best interest of this child under the UCCJA, rather than deferring to the Egyptian legal system.