MK Family Law

My law firm will be offering a free webinar on January 13th at noon ET, where I will provide a summary of the most important international family law updates of 2020.  You can learn more about it, and register by clicking here .

Some interesting issues arose in the case of MARG v. Texas Department of Family & Protective Services .  Third party caregivers were appointed as three (3) children's conservators (custodians) in Texas.  The child's mother, from whom the children were removed, was agreeable to the third parties having custody of the children.  At first, the father could not be located, and the children's mother told authorities that she did not know his location or have his contact details.  The father was appointed an attorney, and eventually was located.  He alerted the Texas authorities that the oldest child had been abducted by the Mother quite some time before, and he had no idea to where she took the child.  The second child was in utero at the time of the abduction.  (The third child is not his child). He claims to have filed a criminal kidnapping action in Guatemala, where he lives, along with a police report, and a filing with the local court.  In th...

The Appellate Division of the Superior Court of NJ's case of Begum v. Palanisamy involves a multi-jurisdictional family and a NJ custody order.  While the opinion itself is merely about a variety of motions filed between the parties, there are some interesting issues that arise that allow this blog to address the mirroring or domesticating of U.S. custody orders in foreign countries.  Under the parents' custody agreement, incorporated into a NJ court order, they shared joint legal custody of their minor daughter, and the child was permitted to relocate to Singapore, with the child's father in NJ having access to the child in Singapore and in the United States.  The order also specified that NJ would retain jurisdiction over the custody matter and the parties were permitted, but not required, to domesticate the NJ custody order in Singapore. The parties returned to the NJ court not long after when the plaintiff mother sought Singaporean citizenship for the child, Alexis....

The case of Schwartz v. Hinnendael gives an interesting assessment of both the Monasky habitual residence standard and the grave risk of harm analysis.  I suggest reading the actual case to get the best view of how the court weighed all the facts and reached its conclusion.  I think the conclusion shows how fact-intensive these cases are, and how judge-specific certain results may be. The parties are both Americans, met in California, and were married in the United States.  The parties separated, and Ms. Hinnendael initiated a divorce proceeding in the United States.  Ms. Hinnendael then moved to Mexico for work.   Mr. Schwartz followed, and the two reconciled.  Ms. Hinnendael ended work with her company (where she sold time shares), but Mr. Schwartz started working for the same company.  The couple then had two children (one in 2018 and the other earlier this year (2020)), both in Mexico.   Ms. Hinnendael removed the children from Me...