Court Opinion

ID: 9493772
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:19:21.174572+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:06.039515
License: Public Domain

GARWOOD, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result:
Despite Judge King’s cogent opinion, I remain troubled by this case.
It is abundantly clear that appellee Doris Miller has willfully flouted the valid orders of the New York court issued in the divorce proceedings she instituted there against appellant William Miller, including unappealed orders awarding custody of the children to William Miller issued after the February 12 and October 3, 1997 orders of the Ontario court (awarding her custody of the children). Those Ontario court orders were issued (without William Miller being present in person or through counsel at any hearing) in custody proceedings Doris Miller instituted there over a year after she filed the New York proceedings. Indeed, Doris Miller personally participated in the New York proceeding evidentiary hearings in September 1997 which ultimately led to the later New York court orders awarding custody to William Miller. And in September 1998 Doris Miller sought an order from the New York court granting her custody which relief was ultimately denied, and the award of custody to William Miller reaffirmed, in the New York court’s unappealed order entered August 16, 1999. The New York court award of custody to William Miller has never been modified.
When William Miller forcibly removed the children from Doris Miller in Canada on August 28, 1998, the last decree outstanding was that of the New York court awarding him custody. The New York court undoubtedly had jurisdiction for that purpose and Doris Miller, the sole petitioner in this case, was bound by that decree notwithstanding the earlier February and October 1997 Ontario court orders. See, e.g., Restatement (2nd) Conflict of Laws §§ 34, 70, 71, 79 & comments a (“a state has power to determine a child’s custody or guardianship as between persons (normally the parents) who are competing for it and over whom it has personal jurisdiction”) and c (“so long as it remains unmodified either at home or abroad, a custody decree rendered by a court having jurisdiction under the rules stated in this, section will be recognized in other states”), and 114; Restatement (2nd) Judgments' § 15.
I do not understand the June 1999 decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal to hold otherwise. Rather, as I read it, that decision held that the Ontario trial court erred in its September 1, 1998 decision, which set aside the October 3,1997 Ontario court decision awarding Doris Miller custody, because the trial court “should have refused to consider the application of the husband until the children were returned to the custody of their mother.” (emphasis added). This followed the appellate court’s reference to the trial court’s having *404“deal[t] with the wife’s disobedience with respect to the New York court orders regarding custody of the children,” after which the appellate court went on to say:
“Whatever rights the husband may have had by reason of the orders of Judge Crapsi [judge of the New York court] or otherwise, he had no right either to assault his wife or to abduct the children. In our view, his conduct should have been condemned by the application judge in the strongest possible terms. Whatever the faults of the wife, the husband had to be made aware that his objectives could not be achieved by violence or other unlawful conduct. To consider his application in the circumstances, was to approbate his conduct.” (emphasis added)
The Court of Appeal made it clear that it was not ultimately ruling on who was legally entitled to custody, but rather was holding that that should not be decided until the status quo, as it existed before William Miller’s resort to violent self-help, was restored. The Court of Appeal cast no doubt on the trial court’s September 1, 1998 finding that Doris Miller “flagrantly has been holding the children in direct contravention of a [March 24, 1998] court order issued by a Niagara Falls, New York court,” in the proceeding which Doris Miller instituted, awarding custody to William Miller. Thus, I am unable to agree with the statement in this Court’s opinion that “[w]e reject Miller’s contentions that Ms. Miller wrongfully retained the children in Canada upon issuance of the New York [March 1998] order.”
Nevertheless, I would not attempt, to grant William Miller relief in the present appeal (assuming any is now practically available). He did resort to violent and unlawful self-help, the custody issue has been left open both in these Hague Convention proceedings and by the Ontario Court of Appeal, and, most importantly, the children have for well over a year now been returned to their mother in Canada. As directed by the district court, the children were put on an airplane for Canada on November 4, 1999. Apparently no stay was sought from this Court. Cf. Diorinou v. Mezitis, 237 F.3d 133 137-38 (2d Cir.2001).*

 A week’s stay was orally requested in the district court, but not to allow an application for stay to this Court but rather to get the children ready and to gather more evidence to present to the district court. Had a brief slay been requested to allow a stay application to this Court to be presented and acted on it seems a fair assumption that such relief would (and should) have been granted.