backNew York, June 24, 2014 — A team of King & Spalding lawyers secured a trial victory on behalf of its client in obtaining the dismissal of a petition that sought repatriation of the client’s eight-year-old daughter to Spain. Following a week-long bench trial, U.S. District Court Judge Ronnie Abrams in the Southern District of New York issued an order on May 16, 2014, rejecting the demand from the child’s mother for the child’s removal and finding that the child is well settled with King & Spalding’s client—the child’s father—in New York.
The child’s mother filed the petition under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, claiming that the child’s father wrongfully retained the child in the U.S. The petition sought repatriation of the child to Spain under the Hague Convention’s requirement that jurisdiction over any custody dispute remain with the country of the child’s “habitual residence.” Before coming to New York, the child had resided with her mother in Spain for fifteen months.
King & Spalding argued on the father’s behalf that the petition should be denied for failing to state a prima facie case and given several defenses, including those that permit dismissal where the child is “well settled” or where there is a risk of grave harm to the child should she return to the country of habitual residence. In support of these arguments, King & Spalding offered evidence that the child was thriving in the United States with her father and would likely suffer from abuse and neglect if returned to Spain.
Following the trial—which included testimony from the father, the child’s mother, the child’s therapist and an in camera interview of the child herself—Judge Abrams issued an order denying the petition based on the “well settled” defense, finding that “the evidence shows overwhelmingly that [the child] is now settled—indeed, thriving—in the United States.” Among the factors cited by the court in its order were the stability of the child’s residence with her father, her permanent resident immigration status, her consistent attendance and success at school, her participation in extracurricular activities, her extensive network of family and friends, and the fact that the father “is a hardworking individual who has been consistently employed.” Petitioner has filed a notice of appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The King & Spalding pro bono legal team representing the father was led by senior associates J. Emmett Murphy and Lauren Webb Mitchell, with assistance from associates Kathryn E. Kuhn and Gregory Schneider. Murphy, Mitchell and Schneider are resident in the firm’s New York office; Kuhn , in its Washington, D.C., office. New York business litigation partner Wendy H. Waszmer oversaw the trial team.
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