Case Update (8 Sept 2026): Harpur v. Loveland; child ordered returned to New Zealand on sua sponte summary judgment

The parties are parents to one child, born in New Zealand in 2022, and where the child’s Mother removed the child from New Zealand for what was represented as a 3-week trip to the USA, commencing with a flight over on July 20, 2025. One week later, the Mother represented she intended on staying in the USA with the child. The parents negotiated a longer stay in the USA, first with the Father consenting to some additional time, and then consenting to up to a total of 9 months. The Father persisted, however, at all points in time, that he did not agree to a permanent relocation. When the parents began negotiating a parenting plan and child support arrangement, the Father sought the child’s return to New Zealand using the Hague Abduction Convention. Shortly after the child was taken to the USA, the Father moved to Australia. This case is slightly out-of-the-ordinary in that it was resolved on the papers. Further, it was resolved on the court’s own initiative - the court, after a preliminary status hearing, gave both parties sufficient opportunity to brief issues, and submit additional papers. The court then provided notice to the parties pursuant to FRCP Rule 56 that it intended to rule on summary judgment. Taking the facts in the light most favorable to the party objecting to the summary judgment motion - the Respondent - the court nonetheless concluded that the child was to be returned to New Zealand.

The court addressed several legal issues. The first was the date of the wrongful “removal”. It pinpointed it as of July 20, 2025. The court fully recognized that this might not otherwise be the proper date - the Father had, after all, agreed to extend the child’s time in Virginia - but it ultimately rested on the fact that the Mother admitted that she intended the move to be permanent (without the Father’s agreement) as of that date. Setting the date at July 20, 2025, the Court assessed the child’s habitual residence as New Zealand, focusing on the number of days the child spent in each country (742 in New Zealand and 201 in the USA); the stability and continuity of the child’s residence in New Zealand compared to the geographically fragmented visits to the USA; and dismissed the Respondent’s arguments that the parties had been discussing a relocation to the USA, buying a home in North Carolina where they would spend summers, and the Petitioner’s failed attempt to get a green card. These were aspirational, and not a concrete decision to relocate. The court also dismissed the Petitioner’s post-relocation move to Australia, because it occurred after the July 20, 2025 date.

The court was not persuaded by any of the argued exceptions. The Petitioner was firm in his assertion that he did not agree with a permanent relocation. His purchase of a one-way ticket to the USA was part of his normal practice in purchasing travel. Further, his providing support, enrolling the child in a school in Virginia, and visiting the child are “a proposition that conflates parental responsibility with acquiescence to the child’s continued absence. Federal district courts across Virginia have declined that invitation. … A contrary ruling would create the perverse incentive for petitioning parents to withhold financial support, guidance, and care from their children for fear that continued parental involvement could later be weaponized as evidence of acquiescence…”. Further, the Petitioner “need not plead for their child’s return in each and every communication or else risk acquiescing to the same.” The court further found insufficient evidence to support a finding of grave risk. The Respondent argued that summary judgment was inappropriate because there is a genuine dispute of material fact, and she is entitled to obtain a psychological evaluation of the Petitioner and the child. The court noted that the evidence presented - suicidal ideation by Petitioner, coercive control, but no physical altercation - if taken as true, does not, in and of itself, make out a grave risk of harm. There was no evidence in the record to support that the behaviors stated, and taken as fact, exposed the child to a grave risk of harm.