Case Update (14 April 2026): Pap v. Lawson; Interpretation of Irish law and Motion to Dismiss

The parties are the biological parents of one child. The child was born on September 16, 2023 in Indiana. From birth until February 29, 2024, the child resided with his parents in Indiana. During this time, the family took a trip to Ireland, where the parents had resided together before the child’s birth. The trip lasted for 10 days. The family ultimately returned to Ireland on May 29, 2024, “with the intention of permanently residing there” as a family. They remained until March 16, 2025, other than a short intervening trip to Indiana in late summer/early fall 2024. On or around March 16, 2025, the child’s Mother took the child on another trip to Indiana, with a roundtrip airline ticket booked for April 24, 2025. On April 23, 2025, the child’s Mother told the child’s Father that she had a July appointment for the child, and they needed to stay in the USA. The child has been in the USA since that trip. The Father initiated a request to return the child pursuant to the Hague Abduction Convention in the appropriate U.S. District Court in October 2025. The Respondent Mother filed a Motion to Dismiss, arguing that the Petitioner Father could not prove he has a “right of custody” to the child, because under Irish Law, an unmarried Father has no rights. She cited to the Guardianship of Infants Act 1964, which gives a child’s parents joint guardianship, but excludes an unmarried father from being a parent. Coincidentally, the 2013 decision of Redmond in the 7th Circuit found this Irish law to form the basis of a similar argument in a Hague Abduction Convention case. The Father, in the instant case, however, argued that in 2015, the Irish law was amended, and a Father can be a parent and have rights, under certain circumstances. Those circumstances involve him cohabiting with the child’s Mother for a certain period of time. The District Court, on the papers, concluded that the Respondent did not provide any reply that addressed these 2015 amendments, and the Petitioner’s own Irish lawyer gave a legal opinion that the Father had a right of custody under the 2015 amendment. Therefore, the District Court denied the Mother’s Motion to Dismiss, and ordered the parties to contact chambers for a status conference date.