Posted by Nydia Streets of Streets Law in Florida Child Custody
When a child is wrongfully removed from Florida or the United States, the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, and/or the Hague Convention may be implicated. When there are competing orders in different jurisdictions, a party may seek an antisuit injunction which means they are asking the Florida court to prevent a foreign court from exercising jurisdiction in the case. This was an issue in the case Niemeyer v. Niemeyer, 3D24-1692 (Fla. 3d DCA April 23, 2025).
The parties were married in Miami, Florida, and their child was born there a year later. The husband alleged the parties’ child attended school in Miami before she was abducted by the wife and taken to Turkey where the wife filed a petition for divorce. The husband, unaware of the wife’s filing in Turkey filed his own action for divorce in Florida and initiated proceedings under the Hague for return of the child from Turkey. Meanwhile, the Turkish court entered an interim order granting the wife custody of the child and determining that Turkey was the child’s place of habitual residence. The Hague petition eventually was decided in the husband’s favor and the Turkish court ordered the child to be returned to Miami. The husband pursued his antisuit injunction in Miami, and the trial court denied it without an evidentiary hearing citing a lack of irreparable harm. The husband appealed.
The appellate court explained “Antisuit injunctions involving foreign proceedings implicate an additional layer of concern. ‘[S]ince the effect of an injunction is to ‘restrict the foreign court’s ability to exercise its jurisdiction,’ which may invite reciprocal action in kind, ‘only in the most compelling circumstances does a court have discretion to issue an antisuit injunction.’’ Id. (quoting Laker Airways, 731 F.2d at 927)).”
The court noted “Here, the husband contends the trial court erred in denying relief because an antisuit injunction is necessary to protect its jurisdiction. The essence of his argument is that Florida has jurisdictional priority over the child because it is the child’s home state. And therefore, he argues, the Turkish family court’s interim ruling runs afoul of the UCCJEA and given the lack of service, traditional notions of due process.” While the appellate court noted it agreed with the husband’s construction of the UCCJEA, it declined to reverse the trial court’s order because essentially it was premature to do so, citing “And here, the Turkish Constitutional Court stayed the Hague order returning the child pending further ruling. The Miami-Dade court has bifurcated the child custody determination and set a trial date on the remaining issues relating to dissolution, ostensibly awaiting further ruling from the Hague court. Given these unique circumstances, we cannot, at this stage in the proceedings, impute any abuse of discretion.”
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