Opinion ID: 805624
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: K.L. “Habitually Resided” in the United States

Text: Our conclusion that consent was given defeats Evelyn’s claim of “wrongful retention.” Even if this analysis is incorrect, however, we conclude that Evelyn failed to satisfy her burden on the elements necessary to establish wrongful retention. Because wrongful-retention analysis depends on first determining K.L.’s country of “habitual residence,” we begin there. See, e.g., Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1072 (“‘Habitual residence’ is the central—often outcome determinative—concept” under the Convention.). “[A]lthough the term ‘habitual residence’ appears throughout the various Hague Conventions, none of them defines it.” Id. at 1071 (footnote omitted). “The inquiry into a child’s habitual residence is not formulaic; rather it is a fact- 16 Although we may not reflexively use the presence of the Final Decree as the “sole,” dispositive fact, nothing precludes us from “tak[ing] account of the reasons for that [order] in applying [the] Convention.” Convention art. 17. 21 Case: 11-50859 Document: 00511940231 Page: 22 Date Filed: 07/31/2012 No. 11-50859 intensive determination that necessarily varies with the circumstances of each case.” Whiting, 391 F.3d at 546 (citation omitted). At core, however, the inquiry balances the interests of the child, who is the ultimate focus of the Convention, and the intentions of its parents, who usually effect the removal or retention giving rise to a Convention petition. See, e.g., Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1072-73; Explanatory Report ¶¶ 57-58. Courts use varying approaches to determine a child’s habitual residence, each placing different emphasis on the weight given to the parents’ intentions. At one end of the spectrum are those jurisdictions holding that a child’s habitual residence cannot be changed without the clear agreement or acquiescence of the nonpossessory parent. See Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1080-81 (discussing foreign authorities, including Re S and another (minors), [1994] 1 All E.R. 237, 249 (Eng. Fam. Div.)). The Sixth Circuit takes the opposite approach, placing paramount importance on the “child’s experience,” as established by the child’s “acclimatization” and “degree of settled purpose,” to the exclusion of the parents’ “subjective intent.” See Robert v. Tesson, 507 F.3d 981, 989-95 (6th Cir. 2007). We join the majority of circuits that “have adopted an approach that begins with the parents’ shared intent or settled purpose regarding their child’s residence.” Nicolson, 605 F.3d at 104 & n.2 (collecting cases). This approach does not ignore the child’s experience, but rather gives greater weight to the parents’ subjective intentions relative to the child’s age. For example, parents’ intentions should be dispositive where, as here, the child is so young that “he or she cannot possibly decide the issue of residency.” Whiting, 391 F.3d at 548-49 (citing English case that looked to parents’ intentions because the child was “two and one-half years old at the time of her abduction”). In such cases, the threshold test is whether both parents intended for the child to “abandon the [habitual residence] left behind.” Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1075; see also Whiting, 391 F.3d at 549-50. Absent shared intent, “prior habitual 22 Case: 11-50859 Document: 00511940231 Page: 23 Date Filed: 07/31/2012 No. 11-50859 residence should be deemed supplanted only where ‘the objective facts point unequivocally’ to this conclusion.” Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1082 (citation omitted). Notably, when “the child’s initial move from an established habitual residence was clearly intended to be for a specific, limited duration[,] . . . most courts will find no change in habitual residence.” Whiting, 391 F.3d at 549 (holding that a change in habitual residence had occurred because the parents had a written agreement that the child should reside in Canada, not New York, at the time the petition was filed); see also Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1077 & n.27 (collecting cases). Mere retention in another country and “private reservations” or intentions that are made “manifest and definitive” only after the child has left its country of origin are generally insufficient to establish intent to change a child’s habitual residence. Nicolson, 605 F.3d at 104. The district court concluded that the U.K. was K.L.’s habitual residence in March 2010 based on K.L.’s acclimation to the U.K. and Derek’s intent that K.L. reside there with Evelyn during Derek’s deployment. The district court relied primarily on Derek’s agreeing to the Temporary Order provision giving Evelyn the right to determine K.L.’s residence without geographic restrictions and on his executing the Consent Affidavit allowing K.L. to reside in the U.K. The district court found that Evelyn and Derek’s “last shared agreement . . . was that [K.L.] reside in the U.K. with his mother.” We disagree. As an initial matter, the district court’s order did not consider several components of the habitual-residence inquiry. The order never analyzes the threshold question of whether Derek and Evelyn shared an intention that K.L. abandon the United States, which was indisputably his habitual residence before his arrival in the U.K. See, e.g., Whiting, 391 F.3d at 548 (citing Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1075-76). Nor did the order address the fact that Evelyn never claimed before filing her petition that she intended for K.L. to permanently remain in the U.K. Derek, for his part, never intended for K.L. to “abandon” the United States for 23 Case: 11-50859 Document: 00511940231 Page: 24 Date Filed: 07/31/2012 No. 11-50859 any amount of time and, at most, agreed for K.L. to stay in the U.K. through resolution of the divorce proceedings. Thus, although Derek agreed that K.L. could remain in the U.K. for some time, no objective facts “unequivocally” show that the U.K. should “supplant[]” the United States as K.L.’s habitual residence. Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1082. Regardless of the ties that K.L. unavoidably developed in the U.K., moreover, the above authorities demonstrate that his young age requires Derek and Evelyn’s shared intentions be the primary focus in the habitual residence inquiry here. See, e.g., Whiting, 391 F.3d at 549-50; Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1079 (“The question whether a child is in some sense ‘settled’ in its new environment is so vague as to allow findings of habitual residence based on virtually any indication that the child has generally adjusted to life there.”). We therefore opt against following the Sixth Circuit’s exclusively child-centered approach. To focus on a young child’s experience encourages future “would-be abductor[s] to seek unilateral custody over a child in another country” or to delay returning to the child’s original habitual residence as long as possible. Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1079 (“The greater the ease with which habitual residence may be shifted without the consent of both parents, the greater the incentive to try.”). Under the de novo review applicable to habitual residence determinations, see Barzilay, 600 F.3d at 916, we determine that the record establishes that K.L.’s presence in the U.K. was to last for a limited duration; that Derek never agreed to any other arrangement; and that no special circumstances justify departing from courts’ general practice of finding no change in habitual residence in such cases. See Whiting, 391 F.3d at 549-50. We therefore conclude that Evelyn’s sojourn did not alter K.L.’s habitual residence. As a result, we need not analyze any other element of the “wrongful-retention” analysis. 24 Case: 11-50859 Document: 00511940231 Page: 25 Date Filed: 07/31/2012 No. 11-50859