MK Family Law

 On August 19, 2020, the Third District Court of Appeal for the State of Florida, in Vicario v. Blanch , reversed the trial court's order staying a dissolution proceeding in lieu of a dissolution proceeding in Spain.   The parties have a complicated timeline of court filings in both jurisdictions.  The Husband first filed for divorce in Florida.  The parties began litigating, but then he voluntarily dismissed his Florida divorce action and filed a few days later in Spain.  Nearly simultaneous to when the Husband filed in Spain, the Wife filed her divorce action in Florida. Ultimately, the Husband served his Spanish divorce action on the Wife a few months before the Wife served her action on the Husband.  When the Husband dismissed his Florida suit, the case was closed.  With him then serving the Wife first with the newly filed divorce action, the Spanish suit took priority and was first-in-time.  Therefore, the trial court deferred to th...

In a March 2, 2020 opinion by the Supreme Court in New York County in Federbush v. Shah (2020 NY Slip Op 50300(U)), the court addressed a multi-jurisdictional divorce suit between a couple that had married in Thailand 8 years earlier.  The couple had signed a prenuptial agreement on the same date as their wedding, which divided property by title, and Wife gave birth to a child about 2 months later.  The family lived in Thailand until mid-2017 when they then relocated to NY.  While Husband is American, the Wife’s nationality presented problems for her remaining in the United States for more than a set number of days at a time.  Approximately 1 year after their arrival in NY, the parties separated while vacationing in Thailand.  The family was embroiled in 3 separate court cases.  Wife filed a Hague return petition in NY that was denied, finding that NY had become the child’s habitual residence by agreement of his parents.  Before this decision was...

Maryland's Court of Special Appeals (its intermediate appellate court) issued an opinion on April 7, 2020 that addressed the issue of the enforceability of Islamic marriage contracts in two separate, yet consolidated, cases. Nouri v. Dadgar  and Ghazirad v. Mojarrad set forth the premise that mahr ( a provision in an Islamic marriage contract for a husband to pay a wife a sum of money ) is not per se unenforceable.  In fact, if the contract can be interpreted based on neutral contract principles, and does not touch upon ecclesiastical law, the court can address the contract's enforceability.  The court, however, went a step farther and set a higher standard for these particular marriage contracts because they are entered into between two individuals in a confidential relationship.  On that basis, the enforceability of the contract should involve a more stringent standard such as that which would apply in the situation of a premarital agreement and look to whether ...