Case Update (14 Oct 2025): Tsuruta v. Tsuruta; Court denies Mother seeking to undo a 3-year-old order returning child to Japan
The parties were involved in a parental child abduction case several years ago. In that case, the Mother was accused of wrongfully removing the parties’ child from Japan and bringing her to Missouri. The Father sought the child’s return using the Hague Abduction Convention, and was successful. During the original trial, the Mother commented on the parties’ marriage in Japan, and the fact that she only knew they were married after the fact, as the Father gave her a document in Japanese that she could not read. The child was ordered returned, and the U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed.
Fast forward almost three years later: the Mother filed a Motion for Relief from Judgment, arguing that the parties were, in fact, not legally married in Japan, which meant that the Father did not have a “right of custody” (a legal pre-requisite to secure the return of the child to Japan under the Abduction Convention), and therefore, the judgment should be vacated and the child should be re-returned to her custody from Japan. She argued FRCP 60(b) in her motion. This part of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure give 6 different arguments that a litigant can make to seek relief from judgment. The first 3 of the reasons - mistake, newly discovered evidence, and fraud - are all required to be brought before the court no more than a year after the entry of the judgment. The sixth argument - “any other reason that justifies relief” should only be applied in “extraordinary circumstances” and is only available if the first five arguments are inapplicable. In this case, the Mother argued fraud, so her motion is untimely, not having been filed within one year. She also attempted to argue the catchall - number 6 - to avoid the untimely filing, but she cannot argue the catchall to do that. Her motion - i.e., the arguments she makes - is covered by the fraud argument, which requires the motion be filed within one year after the entry of judgment. Therefore, the sixth argument - the catchall - is unavailable to her.
The court further highlighted that the Mother made no attempt to explain why she hadn’t discovered the alleged forged signatures on her marriage documents until nearly three years after judgment, particularly in light of her testimony at trial that she could not read the Japanese documents presented to her and didn’t realize she was married until after the fact. Therefore, even if this court were to consider her argument under the catchall part of FRCP 60(b), she has not shown extraordinary circumstances. She had the opportunity to investigate and litigate the elements of her case in 2022. At this juncture, the child is in Japan, and the parties can litigate the Father’s rights of custody in the Japanese courts. It would be extremely prejudicial to the Father to undo a three-year-old judgment, and require him to return a child where that child was presumably the subject of custody litigation in Japan already, and he apparently prevailed.
The Mother’s motion is denied.
