Court Opinion

ID: 9388230
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-20 14:00:32.582933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:18.964543
License: Public Domain

22-1985
   Braude v. Zierler

                            UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

                                        SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION
TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS
GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S
LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH
THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN
ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY
CITING TO A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT
REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

                At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second
   Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square,
   in the City of New York, on the 20th day of April, two thousand twenty-three.

   PRESENT:

              BARRINGTON D. PARKER,
              RICHARD J. SULLIVAN,
                    Circuit Judges,
              JOHN L. SINATRA, JR.,
                    District Judge. *
   _____________________________________

   GADI BRAUDE,

                            Petitioner-Appellant,

                       v.                                                   No. 22-1985

   DORONA MIA ZIERLER,

                            Respondent-Appellee.
   ________________________________________________

   *Judge John L. Sinatra, Jr., of the United States District Court for the Western District of New
   York, sitting by designation.
For Petitioner-Appellant:                    Gadi Braude, pro se, Thornhill, ON,
                                             Canada.

For Respondent-Appellee:                     Mark E. McDonald, Cleary Gottlieb
                                             Steen & Hamilton LLP, New York, NY;
                                             Ye Eun (Charlotte) Chun, Clearly
                                             Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, Palo
                                             Alto, CA.

      Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern

District of New York (Nelson S. Román, Judge).

      UPON      DUE     CONSIDERATION,           IT   IS   HEREBY      ORDERED,

ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the motions to expand the record on appeal

are DENIED and the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

      Gadi Braude, proceeding pro se, appeals the district court’s denial of his

petition pursuant to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International

Child Abduction (the “Hague Convention” or “Convention”), Oct. 25, 1980,

T.I.A.S. No. 11,670, 1343 U.N.T.S. 89, and the International Child Abduction

Remedies Act, 22 U.S.C. § 9001 et seq., to return his two children – who reside with

their mother, Dorona Mia Zierler, in the United States – to Canada.        He also

moves to expand the record on appeal. We assume the parties’ familiarity with

the underlying facts, procedural history, and issues on appeal.

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      “[W]hen a child has been wrongfully removed or retained from his country

of habitual residence, Article 12 of the Hague Convention generally requires the

deciding authority (here, a district court) to order the return of the child.” Golan

v. Saada, 142 S. Ct. 1880, 1891 (2022) (internal quotation marks omitted).

However, “[u]nder Article 13(b) of the Convention, . . . a court is not bound to

order the return of the child if the court finds that the party opposing return has

established that return would expose the child to a grave risk of physical or

psychological harm.” Id. at 1891–92 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also

22 U.S.C. § 9003(e)(2)(A). In other words, “[b]y providing that a court is not

bound to order return upon making a grave-risk finding, Article 13(b) lifts the

Convention’s return requirement, leaving a court with the discretion to grant or

deny return.”    Golan, 142 S. Ct. at 1892 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Moreover, a district court’s “discretion to determine whether to return a child

where doing so would pose a grave risk to the child includes the discretion

whether to consider ameliorative measures that could ensure the child’s safe

return.” Id. at 1893.

      Here, after holding a three-day evidentiary hearing in July 2022, the district

court denied Braude’s request for relief under the Hague Convention. Citing

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Braude’s “long and serious history of untreated mental[-]health issues,” his

“concerning history of angry and manipulative behavior,” and his “arrest for

access and possession of child pornography,” the district court found that “[t]he

record reflects [the] existence of factors in combination that create[d] a grave risk

of harm if the children were returned to Canada.”               Sp. App’x at 17–21.

Furthermore, the district court found that Braude’s proposed ameliorative

measures would not adequately “prioritize the children’s physical and

psychological safety.”     Id. at 21–22.    Braude timely appealed, asking us to

expand the record on appeal and, on the basis of the new evidence, hold that the

district court erred in its grave-risk and ameliorative-measures findings.

      As an initial matter, we deny Braude’s motions to expand the record to

include two categories of documents. Ordinarily, our review is limited to the

record on appeal – meaning the original papers and exhibits filed in the district

court, the transcript of proceedings, if any, and a certified copy of the docket

entries prepared by the district clerk, see Fed. R. App. P. 10(a)(1) – unless a litigant

can show “extraordinary circumstances,” Munn v. Hotchkiss Sch., 795 F.3d 324, 330

(2d Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Int’l Bus. Machs. Corp. v.

                                           4
Edelstein, 526 F.2d 37, 45 (2d Cir. 1975).      Braude has not shown any such

extraordinary circumstances here.

      First, Braude seeks consideration of a Canadian child-welfare agency’s

records spanning from October 2020 to August 2022 regarding Braude, Zierler,

and their children (the “Agency Records”), which he allegedly requested months

before the July 2022 evidentiary hearing but were not produced to him until

September 2022. But the fact that the Agency Records were not available until

after the district court issued its judgment is not in and of itself an extraordinary

circumstance.    See, e.g., OneWorld, LLC v. Onoufriadis, No. 21-374, 2021 WL

4452070, at *2 (2d Cir. Sept. 29, 2021). Furthermore, while Braude intimates that

Zierler intentionally delayed the release of the Agency Records, we cannot say that

this constitutes an extraordinary circumstance even if true, given that

Braude – who was represented by counsel below – failed to raise this issue in the

district court, and in fact requested an expedited hearing on his petition without

having the Agency Records in hand. See, e.g., Sloan v. United Techs. Corp., 596 F.

App’x 35, 36 n.2 (2d Cir. 2015) (concluding that trial counsel’s failure to include

evidence in the district-court record was not an extraordinary circumstance); see

                                         5
also Zheng-Smith v. Nassau Health Care Corp., No. 20-3544, 2021 WL 4097316, at *1

n.1 (2d Cir. Sept. 9, 2021) (similar).

      Second, Braude seeks consideration of Zierler’s family offense petition filed

in New York Family Court months after the July 2022 evidentiary hearing

(the “November 2022 Petition”), arguing that it undermines Zierler’s prior sworn

testimony regarding abuse.       But the fact that post-judgment evidence, had it

existed at the time of the hearing, could have been relevant – or, in this case, could

have been used to impeach the credibility of an adverse witness – is not enough to

justify an expansion of the record on appeal. See, e.g., Matos v. Comm’r of Social

Sec., 618 F. App’x 14, 15 (2d Cir. 2015) (refusing to consider post-judgment

evidence). Moreover, a brief perusal of the November 2022 Petition reflects that

it is largely consistent with Zierler’s earlier assertions that Braude had previously

engaged in various forms of abuse. Given these facts, we find that Braude has

failed to show extraordinary circumstances warranting expansion of the record.

      Because Braude’s only arguments on appeal rest on the new evidence we

may not consider, he has abandoned all other challenges to the district court’s

decision, and we affirm. See LoSacco v. City of Middletown, 71 F.3d 88, 93 (2d Cir.

1995). In any event, we note that our review of the record reveals that the district

                                          6
court did not abuse its discretion, see Golan, 142 S. Ct. at 1895, as there was ample

basis for the court’s conclusions that returning the children to Canada would

expose them to grave risk and that Braude’s proposed ameliorative measures

would not adequately protect them, see id. at 1892–95.

      We have considered Braude’s remaining arguments and find them to be

without merit.   Accordingly, we DENY the motions to expand the record on

appeal and AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

                                       FOR THE COURT:
                                       Catherine O=Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

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