Summary
This memorandum and order from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York addresses a petition under the Hague Convention and ICARA seeking the return of a six-year-old child to Turkey. The court granted summary judgment in favor of the petitioner on the issues of the child’s habitual residence and lack of consent for relocation, but denied summary judgment on whether the mother’s move constituted a wrongful removal due to a genuine dispute over the translation of a Turkish divorce decree. The court declined to stay the proceedings pending parallel litigation in Turkey, emphasizing the Hague Convention’s goal of expedited resolution.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Turkey was O.T.'s habitual residence at the time of his removal.
- Whether the record established as a matter of law that O.T.'s removal from Turkey was wrongful because it breached Tatari's custody rights under Turkish law and the divorce decree.
- Whether Tatari consented to O.T.'s removal to the United States by agreeing to the Turkish divorce decree or otherwise.
- Whether the case should be dismissed, stayed, or abstained from in favor of the pending Turkish proceedings, or whether the court should pursue an Article 15 determination from a Turkish court.
Holdings
- Turkey was O.T.'s habitual residence at the time of his removal, and Tatari was entitled to summary judgment on that issue.
- Neither party was entitled to summary judgment on whether Durust's removal of O.T. from Turkey was wrongful.
- Tatari did not consent to O.T.'s removal to the United States, and Tatari was entitled to summary judgment rejecting consent as a defense.
- The court declined to dismiss, abstain from, or stay the Hague Convention proceeding in favor of the pending Turkish custody proceedings.
Key quotations
“Under those laws, my role at this stage is not to adjudicate the underlying custody dispute between O.T.’s parents, but to determine whether O.T. was wrongfully removed to the United States.”
“I cannot grant summary judgment on wrongful removal because there is a genuine dispute of material fact.”
“The combination of the evidence presented, namely, Tatari’s reservation of a right to sue upon relocation during the divorce proceedings, the exercise of that right in January 2024, and the subsequent, repeated refusal for O.T. to go abroad, shows that there is no genuine dispute of material fact that Tatari did not consent for O.T. to move abroad in August 2024 because Tatari either did not give consent during the divorce proceedings or clearly revoked that consent before removal.”
Factual background
Tatari and Durust married in Turkey in 2016, and their child O.T. was born in Florida in 2018. The family lived primarily in Turkey until August 2024, when Durust took O.T. to the United States and enrolled him in school in New York. A Turkish divorce decree gave Durust sole custody but contained disputed language requiring her to obtain Tatari's "onay," translated by the parties as either his approval or his opinion, if she decided to live abroad with the child. Tatari objected to international travel, refused to sign O.T.'s passport-renewal documents, and pursued a Turkish custody action before Durust relocated with O.T.
Procedural history
Tatari filed the Hague Convention petition on October 1, 2024, alleging that Durust wrongfully removed their child from Turkey to New York. The parties conducted expedited discovery and filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The court granted Tatari summary judgment on habitual residence and consent, denied Durust's motion, and left the wrongful-removal issue for further proceedings because material factual disputes existed concerning the interpretation of the Turkish divorce decree and Turkish law.