Case Update (19 Dec 2024): In re. Parental Responsibilities Concerning ML; Child had significant connections to CO that were more significant than the child’s connections to Austria

The parties are parents to one child, born in Austria in May 2021. Mother is Austrian, and “spends time and works in both Austria and Colorado.” Father lives and works in Colorado. Just over one year after the child’s birth, while the Mother was in Colorado, the Father filed a petition in Colorado to allocate parental responsibility. “At that point, the child had traveled between Austria and Colorado several times, spending a total of about eight months in Colorado.” The Mother sought to dismiss the petition, arguing a lack of jurisdiction under the Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) enacted in Colorado. She argued, in the alternative, that if the court had jurisdiction, it should decline based on being an inconvenient forum. The district court denied her motion, and allocated parenting time. The Court of Appeals reviewed the court’s findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo.

Pursuant to the UCCJEA, a Colorado court has jurisdiction to allocate parental responsibility if it is the child’s home state. The district court, however, concluded, in this situation, that the child had no home state (the location where the child had resided with a parent for six consecutive months immediately before the filing of the petition). If a child has no home state, then the court must look at where the child and at least one parent have a significant connection with Colorado and where substantial evidence is available concerning the child’s care, protection, training, and personal relationships. The court also heard from two Austrian legal experts, who opined on Austria’s jurisdictional standard - habitual residence - and concluded that the habitual residence standard for jurisdiction in Austria “was not satisfied because the child had not lived in Austria for six consecutive months.”

The court examined both the child’s and mother’s connections to Colorado and to Austria. Specifically, the child had resided for 60% of her life in CO, the Mother owns a rental property in CO, had been working in Boulder while on parental leave in Austria, had registered an LLC in CO, collected unemployment benefits in CO, paid taxes in CO, had a CO driver’s license, and her parents who share caretaking responsibilities have a permanent residence in Boulder. Further, her boyfriend, “described as the child’s ‘factual father,’ lives and works in Colorado.” Compared to Austria, the Mother and Child have Austrian citizenship, have access to Austria’s generous social benefits, and Mother has a job in Austria to which she can return. However, the court did not find Mother’s testimony credible that she planned to settle permanently in Austria. On this basis, the court concluded Colorado had significant connections, and therefore had jurisdiction under the UCCJEA. The Court of Appeals court affirmed.

Separately, the Court of Appeals remanded to the district court to award appellate fees against the Mother, finding her appeal frivolous. The Mother had raised the “Hague Convention” on appeal, arguing the habitual residence standard in Monasky v. Taglieri in the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Court of Appeals correctly noted that is not relevant here. The Court of Appeals also concluded that Mother’s “briefing neither ‘coherently explains why the district court erred’ nor includes any citations to relevant authority that show an error occurred.” She didn’t include a transcript with her appeal. Further, in a footnote, the court noted that her arguments related to inconvenient forum were “too undeveloped for us to review.”