Case Update (28 Oct 2024): Sabakar v. Stacy; Parents’ Custody Agreement is Subject to a Court’s Parens Patriae Power and a Best Interest Analysis

In 2018, the parties, who are parents to one minor child, entered an agreement as to that child’s custody and parenting. At the time, neither parent was represented. Paragraph 16(H) of that agreement states that the Father “shall not, in any way, impede, obstruct nor interfere with the process of the minor [C]hild receiving his Russian citizenship.” The Mother now seeks “the enforcement of a straightforward contractual agreement.” She asks the court to compel the Father to comply with her application for the child’s dual citizenship. At the hearing, the Mother argued that the trial court should allow her to obtain dual citizenship for the child because it would “provide additional protections for him [the child] in emergency situations and allow him access to affordable orthodontic care in Russia.” The Father argued that “dual citizenship would facilitate Mother fleeing with the Child to Russia, something Father testified Mother has threatened to do over the years [since the agreement was signed].” Father also stated that, at the time he signed the agreement, he did not know that the Hague Abduction Convention did not effect legal relations between the U.S. and Russia, and that the U.S. Department of State has since issued a travel alert to Russia because of the intervening conflict in Ukraine, which was not foreseeable in 2018.

The trial court opined that parents can enter into legally binding agreements, but “[t]hey have no power, however, to bargain away the rights of their children.” In other words, custody agreements and what is best for children “falls under the jurisdiction of the court’s wide and necessary powers to provide for that best interest. [The parties’ bargain] is at best advisory to the court and swings on the tides of the necessity that the children be provided.” “A contract pertaining to the custody of a minor child is always subject to being set aside in the best interest of the child. To set aside a private agreement regarding the custody of a child, it is not necessary that a court find a change of circumstances.” Therefore, in assessing the child’s best interest, the trial court concluded that the 2018 agreement was not dispositive, and the court could independently apply a best-interest analysis. On appeal, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania concluded that there was no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s conclusion that obtaining dual citizenship is not in the child’s best interest.