Opinion ID: 3066200
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Shared, Settled Intent

Text: Because the issue of “settled intention to abandon a prior habitual residence is a question of fact as to which we defer to the district court,” Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1075–76, we begin with the court’s findings.5 In conducting our review, we give 4 We note, for example, that although counsel for Murphy emphasizes a recent change in British law, post-dating Mozes, even the newest British cases emphasize that parental intent plays a role in determining a child’s habitual residence, alongside other considerations. See, e.g., In re KL [2013] UKSC 75 at ¶ 23 (noting that “it is clear that parental intent does play a part in establishing or changing the habitual residence of a child”). 5 Although the official report of the Convention describes habitual residence as a “question of pure fact,” “this has not been understood to mean that [the determination] is left entirely within the unreviewed discretion of the trial court.” Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1071, 1073. Instead, we review “essentially factual questions for clear error and the ultimate issue of habitual residence de novo.” Valenzuela, 736 F.3d at 1176 (internal quotation marks omitted). MURPHY V. SLOAN 11 “appropriate deference to the district court’s findings of fact and credibility determinations.” Papakosmas v. Papakosmas, 483 F.3d 617, 623 (9th Cir. 2007). It is undisputed that before she left for Ireland, E.S.’s habitual residence was the United States. In concluding that “the parties never had a ‘shared settled intent’ that E.S.’s habitual residence would be Ireland,” and that “E.S. never abandoned her habitual residence in the United States,” the district court made a number of factual findings. These include the finding that the last “shared, settled intent regarding E.S.’s habitual residence” was in the spring of 2010 (United States); that “Murphy’s move to Ireland with E.S. was intended as a ‘trial period,’ and that E.S. never abandoned her habitual residence in the United States”; that E.S. retains strong ties to community and family in California and elsewhere in the United States; that Murphy had no fixed residence in Ireland as of the date of the wrongful retention; that many of Murphy’s and E.S.’s possessions remained in California; and that E.S. was continuing to spend part of the year in California with Sloan. The district court further noted that E.S. retained both U.S. and Irish citizenship; that Murphy has a California driver’s license, but not an Irish one; and that Murphy had no permanent home or longer-term lease or means of support in Ireland, and no longer had any attachment to Ireland in terms of work or schooling after she completed her master’s degree in October 2013. To be sure, in cases in which parents “have shared a settled mutual intent that [a] stay [abroad] last indefinitely,” “we can reasonably infer a mutual abandonment of the child’s 12 MURPHY V. SLOAN prior habitual residence.” Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1077.6 But this is not such a case. Rather, this case falls in the alternative category identified in Mozes: one in which the “circumstances are such that, even though the exact length of the [child’s] stay was left open to negotiation, the court is able to find no settled mutual intent from which abandonment can be inferred.” Id.; see id. at 1077–78 (noting that “[c]learly, this is one of those questions of ‘historical and narrative facts’ in which the findings of the district court are entitled to great deference”). Indeed, there was never any discussion, let alone agreement, that the stay abroad would be indefinite. As the district court expressly found, the move to Ireland was “intended as a ‘trial period,’” not as a permanent relocation. The facts do not evince a shared, settled intent to abandon the United States as E.S.’s residence. Instead, they point to the opposite conclusion. Sloan never intended that the stay in Ireland be anything but a “trial period.” Murphy, moreover, did not have a settled intent to remain in Ireland, either alone or with E.S., as in the last two years she had applied or had considered applying to graduate schools outside of Ireland, including in the United States, and had not enrolled E.S. in 6 Mozes notes that where a parent who “agrees to . . . an arrangement without any clear limitations” whereby a “child goes to live with a parent in that parent’s native land,” the parent “may well be held to have accepted th[e] eventuality” that the child “will soon begin to lose its habitual ties to any prior residence.” 239 F.3d at 1082. The scenario in Mozes, however, describes a situation in which the parents agree to an arrangement “on an open-ended basis,” or have a “settled intent in favor of indefinite residence.” Id. As noted above, the present case falls into a different category: arrangements whose exact length are left open but where there is no settled intent. Notably, Sloan never “accepted th[e] eventuality” that E.S. would lose her ties to him or to his country. See id. MURPHY V. SLOAN 13 school in Ireland for the fall of 2013.7 When Sloan took E.S. back to California and told Murphy that E.S. would be enrolling in school in Mill Valley, Murphy did not object, and instead stated “th[at] she was applying to graduate programs.” Murphy told Sloan on June 21, 2013 that if E.S. was moving back to the United States, she would move next to him in Mill Valley.8 The district court’s factual findings are not clearly erroneous, nor do we disagree with its conclusion that E.S. never abandoned her habitual residence in the United States.