Many years ago, I went to paralegal school and took a course in family law. My impression of family law at that time was that it was both boring and overly emotional and represented more of an exercise in judicial Jerry-Springer-ing than in real litigating.
However, when I later took a law school family law course, I realized that amidst all the emotional posturing, there are quite a bit of really interesting legal issues and that family law is quite complex. There are confusing jurisdictional questions, interstate conflicts, complicated mathematical questions involved in property interest valuation, and much more.
The recent United States Supreme Court decision in Chafin v. Chafin reflects a family law case with one such interesting question. The Court in that case held that simply because a child is removed from the country and is beyond the control of the American justice system, does not make a child custody proceeding in the United States moot. You will no doubt find this as interesting as I did.
BACKGROUND OF THE CASE
This case began when Jeffrey Chafin, a sergeant first-class in the Army, was stationed in Germany. There he met and eventually married Lynne Chafin, a citizen of the United Kingdom. The two had a daughter together.
When the military stationed Jeffrey in Alabama, Lynne and their daughter went with him. Later that year, Lynne filed for divorce in Alabama state court. When she was arrested for domestic violence, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services were alerted to the fact that Lynne’s visa had expired. She was accordingly deported. Their daughter remained with Jeffrey in Alabama.
Lynne filed suit in federal court seeking the return of her daughter to Scotland. The trial court ruled in her favor and Lynne immediately took her daughter back to Scotland. There a Scottish court ruled in her favor for interim custody and prohibited Jeffrey from removing the child from Scotland.
While all this was going on, Jeffrey appealed the U.S. federal court’s decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. That court found that the issue was moot because the child was already in Scotland and was therefore beyond the court’s control.
That decision was eventually appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
COURT’S REASONING
The core issue before the Court was whether or not the case was moot simply because both Lynne and the couple’s daughter were in Scotland.
The Supreme Court held that the issue was not moot and was still very much alive. First, there were still pending issues regarding costs and fees.
Second, the Court felt that just because Lynne had stepped outside of the jurisdiction of the United States, did not mean that a U.S. Court was incapable of issuing orders regarding her. The Court still had personal jurisdiction over her. So the mere fact that she left the country did not mean that the trial court could not issue an order commanding her to do something, or issuing sanctions for her failure to comply with a court order.
CONCLUSION
While the Court held in favor of Jeffrey on the issue of mootness, this does not bring a complete victory to him. Jeffrey must still go back to the lower courts and attempt to deal with the case on its merits.
See, interesting issues, right? I have little doubt that you are all as excited about constitutional questions regarding mootness as I am.