The parents married in Pakistan in 2018 and lived most of their marriage in Canada. In August 2024 the family moved to Texas. About nine months later, the father filed for divorce in Collin County and asked for joint managing conservatorship of the couple’s three young children. The mother was a Canadian permanent resident in Texas on a visitor visa that was about to expire. She alleged domestic violence in Canada, including an incident that led Ontario child protective services to remove the father from the home. She moved to dismiss on forum non conveniens grounds and filed her own divorce in the Superior Court of Justice in St. Catharines, Ontario. The trial court first denied her motion, then granted it on reconsideration and dismissed the case. The Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed. Applying UCCJEA § 152.105, it treated Canada as a state and accepted that Texas was the children’s home state. It held that the trial court nonetheless acted within its discretion in finding Texas an inconvenient forum under § 152.207. On the factors, the court pointed to the domestic violence allegations, the mother’s inability to work or remain lawfully in the U.S., the Canadian witnesses outside Texas subpoena power, and the marital property located in Canada.
I want to stress what this case illustrates about divisible divorce. Whether a court can grant a divorce and whether it can decide where the children live and when each parent sees them are two separate jurisdictional questions. A court may have jurisdiction over one and not the other. As the court itself notes, Texas law lets a court decline the custody piece while keeping the divorce (Tex. Fam. Code § 6.308; § 152.207(d)). One proceeding can therefore be split. The opinion’s organization may create some confusion as it moves back and forth between its analysis of custody jurisdiction and divorce jurisdiction.
I was glad to see the court’s footnote making clear that this is not a child abduction case. The father had borrowed the term “habitual residence” and cited Larbie v. Larbie to argue that Texas was the children’s habitual residence. The court explained that the Hague Abduction Convention and ICARA address the prompt return of wrongfully removed or retained children, not underlying custody disputes. Neither party had invoked the Convention in the trial court, and it had no bearing on the issues. Practitioners mix up “home state” and “habitual residence” all the time, and it is helpful to see an appellate court say so plainly.
