Fernandez v. Bailey

• Decision Date: 20 November 2018
• Docket Number: No. 16-16387,16-16387
• Parties: Roque Jacinto FERNANDEZ, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Christy Nicole BAILEY, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

909 F.3d 353

Roque Jacinto FERNANDEZ, Petitioner-Appellant,

v.Christy Nicole BAILEY, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 16-16387

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

November 20, 2018

Brandon Faulkner, Jennifer Lada, Holland & Knight, LLP, Tampa, FL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Jeffrey W. Gibson, Ashley E. Taylor, William B. Taylor, IV, Macfarlane Ferguson & McMullen, PA, Tampa, FL, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before MARTIN, JORDAN, and WALKER,^* Circuit Judges.

WALKER, Circuit Judge:

The American mother of the twin boys at the center of this case abducted them twice from Panama before they were six years old. After the first abduction, when they were infants, a Missouri court ordered their return to their native Panama under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (the Hague Convention or Convention). The second time, when the boys were five and while custody proceedings were underway in Panama, their mother abducted them and took them to Tampa, Florida. It took their Panamanian father, Roque Jacinto Fernandez, two and one-half years to find them. When he petitioned the district court for their return this time, the district court denied the petition, finding that in the little over two years that the children had been in Florida they had become so settled that an exception to the Hague Convention’s general principle of return applied. The father appealed to this court, arguing in relevant part that the district court erred by declining to exercise its discretion to order return, even if the children were settled, because of the mother’s repeated abduction of the boys. We agree with the father that the district court abused its discretion by not ordering the children returned to Panama in the face of the mother’s second abduction. Accordingly, we VACATE the district court’s denial of the petition for removal, and REMAND to the district court to grant the petition and enter a judgment ordering the children returned to Panama so custody proceedings can continue.

I. BACKGROUND

On May 15, 2009, American Christy Bailey ("the mother") fled Panama with her two nine-month-old sons without telling the boys’ father, Roque Jacinto Fernandez ("the father").¹ After he found the mother and boys living in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the father petitioned in the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri (Limbaugh, J. ) seeking the return of the boys to Panama under the Hague Convention. See Fernandez v. Bailey , No. 1:10CV00084 SNLJ, 2010 WL 3522134 (E.D. Mo. Sept. 1, 2010), modified , No. 1:10CV00084 SNLJ, 2010 WL 5399220 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 23, 2010). In September 2010, the Missouri district court ordered their return upon finding that the father had a custody right under Panamanian law, the mother’s removal of the children was "wrongful" and in violation of the Convention, and none of the exceptions to return applied. The mother followed the order and returned to Panama with the children so custody proceedings there could determine the matter. As a precaution, the father, unbeknownst to the mother, had an exit restriction put in place to prevent the mother from leaving the country again without his permission.

While the boys continued to live with their mother in Panama, their father visited with them every other weekend and pursued custody in Panamanian court. Because of the parents’ animosity, the Panamanian judge designated a police station as the pick-up and drop-off point. These visits went on routinely until January 2013, when the father, in contravention of the custody arrangement in place, kept the children for two months. At the mother’s request, a police officer retrieved the boys from their school and took them to court where the judge ordered the children returned to the mother. The father has not seen or spoken with the children since then.

For the next eleven months, the children remained in Panama with their mother. During this time, the father says he showed up for the regularly scheduled visits, which the mother denies. The father retained a lawyer in Panama to locate the children. In the meantime, the mother secured a well-paying job in Tampa, and on February 2, 2014, less than three and one-half years after she was ordered to return to Panama, and, with custody proceedings in Panama pending, the mother again abducted the children to the United States without telling the father. The boys are dual Panamanian-American citizens with American passports, and they were allowed to lawfully enter the country.

In the United States, the mother and the boys first moved into an apartment in St. Petersburg, Florida, where the boys started school. About a year later, the three moved to nearby Tampa, where the schools were better. The mother paid bills and taxes in her own name, and the children were signed up for T-Ball teams and camps using their own names as well.

Meanwhile, in Panama, the father continued to search for his children. In September 2014, frustrated by the lack of progress, the father hired a new attorney who sought information about the children from Panamanian immigration authorities. In January 2015, those authorities informed the father that the children had left Panama nearly a year earlier. At that point, the father turned to the U.S. Department of State ("State") for assistance in locating his children. In response, State mailed letters to the mother at multiple addresses in Florida that were never returned. Eventually the father’s private investigator located the boys in Tampa, and on August 24, 2016—two and one-half years following their abduction from Panama—the father filed his second petition for return of the children, this time in the District Court for the Middle District of Florida. As in the first suit, the father’s petition sought the return of the children under the Hague Convention. In response, the mother argued that the children should not be returned because (1) there was a grave risk of harm to the children if they returned to Panama, (2) the children had a mature objection to returning, and (3) the children were settled in their new home.

On September 12, 2016, the district court (Hernandez Covington, J. ) commenced a three-day evidentiary hearing, during which the mother took the stand, the father testified in English by video from Panama, and the district court interviewed the boys in camera . Following the hearing, the district court found that the father had established a prima facie case under the Hague Convention because the children were wrongfully taken from Panama.²

Nevertheless, the district court determined that the mother had established by a preponderance of the evidence the affirmative defense that the children were settled within the meaning of Article 12 of the Convention. Although the district court acknowledged that it retained discretion to order the children returned, it declined to do so, finding that the children’s interest in settlement outweighed the Hague Convention’s purpose to discourage wrongful removals. Accordingly, on September 21, 2016, the district court entered an order denying removal to Panama. The father timely appealed.

II. DISCUSSION

On appeal, the father argues that the district court erred when it denied his petition to return the children to Panama by (1) misapplying the settled exception to return, and (2) declining to exercise its discretion to order return, even if the children were settled, because of the mother’s repeated abduction of the boys. We agree with the father that the district court abused its discretion by not ordering the children returned to Panama in the face of the mother’s second abduction. Therefore, we conclude that return is required, and we need not address the district court’s conclusion that the boys are settled.

A. The Hague Convention

Both Panama and the United States are signatories to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See Status Table: Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction , HAGUE CONFERENCE ON PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW , https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/status-table/?cid=24 (last visited November 19, 2018). That treaty has two aims: (1) "to secure the prompt return of children wrongfully removed to or retained in any Contracting State" and (2) "to ensure that rights of custody and of access under the law of one Contracting State are effectively respected in other Contracting States." The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, Oct. 25, 1980, art. 1, T.I.A.S. No. 11,670, 19 I.L.M. 1501, 1501. The Convention furthers its goal of "discourag[ing] child abduction," Lozano v. Montoya Alvarez , 572 U.S. 1, 16, 134 S.Ct. 1224, 188 L.Ed.2d 200 (2014), by requiring signatory states to make available a remedy whereby parents of abducted children can bring proceedings to compel the return of their children who have been taken to foreign countries.³ See Hague Convention arts. 7, 12. This return remedy is "[t]he Convention’s central operating feature," Abbott v. Abbott , 560 U.S. 1, 9, 130 S.Ct. 1983, 176 L.Ed.2d 789 (2010), and "the core of the Convention," State Dep’t Legal Analysis, at 10,507. It "lays venue for the ultimate custody determination in the child’s country of habitual residence rather than the country to which the child is abducted." Lozano , 572 U.S. at 5, 134 S.Ct. 1224. And it honors "the principle that the best interests of the child are well served when decisions regarding custody rights are made in the country of habitual residence." Abbott , 560 U.S. at 20, 130 S.Ct. 1983.

In the United States, Congress made the return remedy available by passing the International Child Abduction Remedies Act (ICARA) of 1988, which granted federal district courts jurisdiction to review petitions for return filed by the parents of abducted children. See 22 U.S.C. §§ 9001(b)(1), 9003(a).

For a parent whose child has been abducted to a foreign country, taking...