MK Family Law

The Middle District of Tennessee examined the issue of habitual residence in a "retention" case under the 1980 Hague Abduction Convention in Rodriguez v. Fernandez .  In this case, the court weeded through inconsistent testimony taken by remote technology through interpreters and messages that were translated in real time by the witnesses from Spanish to English.  It concluded that the parents of a young child, AM, who were living in Mexico, agreed to move as a family to Tennessee with their child in late 2018.  The mother and child moved in October to spend some time with the maternal grandmother.  The father was to join in December 2018 after work obligations, but, before he could relocate, the mother alerted him that she no longer wished to cohabit.  The record became more confusing when different witnesses and evidence debated when the father actually concluded that the mother and child's time in Tennessee was intended to be a permanent relocation without hi...

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, in the case of U.S. v. Houtar , recently addressed the issue of whether the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act (IPKCA) was unconstitutionally vague as applied against a father who had not actually abducted his children, but instead retained his children in Yemen after they had already lived there for several years.  The parents were married in Yemen, moved to the U.S., had children, and then returned to Yemen with the children.  They obtained a divorce in Yemen, and then returned to the U.S. separately, leaving the children with Mr. Houtar's family in Yemen. In September 2016, Mr. Houtar's ex-wife obtained a custody order from the Kings County Family Court, which ordered Mr. Houtar to bring the children back to the U.S. from Yemen.  He defied the order, fled the U.S., and resumed living in Yemen with the children.  The mother then went for three years without seeing the children.  Mr. Houtar was charged with 2 counts of...