Opinion ID: 789256
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Legal Custody Under New York Law

Text: 45 I believe that our first obligation under Fierro is to examine New York law to see whether it clearly determines legal custody. Unfortunately, New York law, like the INA, does not define the term legal custody. The New York Domestic Relations Law uses the term repeatedly, but never defines it. Nor does any case from the Court of Appeals, New York's highest court, define or explicate the phrase. I have found only three cases in which New York courts have given some clues to the state's definition of legal custody, albeit not clear direction. See Otero ex rel. Otero v. State, 159 Misc.2d 35, 602 N.Y.S.2d 501 (1993); Villafane v. Banner, 87 Misc.2d 1037, 387 N.Y.S.2d 183 (N.Y.Sup.Ct.1976); Coveleski v. Coveleski, 93 A.D.2d 924, 462 N.Y.S.2d 330 (N.Y.App.Div.1983). The first two cases were decided in the context of New York Civil Practice Law and Rules (CPLR) 1201, which allows a parent or other person with legal custody to bring a suit on behalf of an infant. The Otero and Villafane courts determined legal custody only for the purpose of allowing the alleged custodian to sue on the child's behalf. 46 In Otero, the New York Court of Claims, which adjudicates civil suits against state government agencies, refused to allow an incarcerated father to bring a CPLR 1201 suit on behalf of his infant daughter, who was injured while visiting him in prison. The court noted that there was very little discussion of the term `legal custody' as used in this context. It apparently incorporates both physical custody and, where someone other than a parent has physical custody, a judicial decree awarding custody to that person. 602 N.Y.S.2d at 502 (citing Villafane, supra, 387 N.Y.S.2d at 184). Finding that an incarcerated parent could not have physical custody, the court ordered the case dismissed unless the daughter's legal custodian was substituted as plaintiff within sixty days. Id. In Villafane, the Supreme Court of New York County refused to allow a grandmother to bring a CPLR 1201 action on behalf of her infant grandchild. The grandmother had long had informal custody of the infant, but the child had never formally been placed in her care. The court determined that, under CPLR 1201, married parents share legal custody, while, if the parents are separated, [i]t would appear ... that `having legal custody' was intended to designate a person whose custody was formally determined by judicial decree. 387 N.Y.S.2d at 184. As no such decree gave the grandmother custody, the court stayed the suit pending appointment of a guardian ad litem to litigate on behalf of the infant. 47 The CPLR 1201 context is tangential here, and I am none too confident in drawing lessons about New York's law of legal custody from these two cases. I do so only because there are so few relevant sources for that law, and because Otero and Villafane, like the INA, seem motivated by a desire to fix legal custody on the person who represents the real interests of the child, in order to insure that litigation on behalf of the child is actually in his or her interests. 8 48 On the other hand, the third New York case, Coveleski, supra, 93 A.D.2d 924, 462 N.Y.S.2d 330, is more clearly a domestic relations case. Pursuant to a separation agreement, an earlier court order had granted custody of a child to the mother, and required the father to pay child support. The father ended up having physical custody of the child for a significant period, and did not pay child support during that time. The mother sued for the arrearages, and the father argue[d] that he had physical custody of the child during the period in question and not plaintiff and, therefore, he was not required to pay plaintiff child support pursuant to the agreement. Id. at 924, 462 N.Y.S.2d 330. The Appellate Division disagreed, noting that the separation agreement and judgment of divorce had never been modified, and consequently legal custody of the child continued throughout in plaintiff. Id. (emphasis added). 49 Coveleski is clearly in some tension with Otero' s suggestion that physical custody is a necessary element of legal custody. Given this tension, I think it best to avoid determining whether New York legal custody law actually requires physical custody, as Bagot urges us to do. 50 On the other hand, each of these New York cases places some emphasis on deriving legal custody from a judicial decree. While Otero at least suggests that a parent in physical custody may not need a decree to obtain legal custody, Villafane and Coveleski seem to require a judicial decree of custody in essentially all cases. 51 I thus draw only the most limited conclusions from New York law. Taken together Otero, Villafane , and Coveleski make clear that, at a minimum, a valid judicial decree plus physical custody will create legal custody under New York law. Under Coveleski, it is quite likely that a valid judicial decree alone will create legal custody in at least some cases, though we need not decide that issue here. However, in the absence of a valid judicial decree of legal custody, matters are much murkier. No New York case appears to find legal custody in a divorced parent who does not have a custody order from a court. 52 It is not necessary to decide that New York law requires a valid judicial decree to create legal custody. Rather, I conclude only that New York law is not sufficiently clear to fix INA legal custody in the absence of such a decree. Therefore, under Fierro, I look to New York law to see if any court has issued a valid order determining legal custody. In the absence of such an order, and there is none here, I will not attempt to divine what New York courts would do; rather, I will fall back on the actual uncontested custody prong of Matter of M —. 9