Case Update (9 Oct 2026): Muehlbauer v. Muelbauer; more than two years from petition to return order to Switzerland
The parties married in California in 2019, and their daughter was born in Los Angeles in January 2020. The family moved to Ascona, Switzerland in May 2021. The Mother started separation proceedings in Switzerland in June 2023. In October 2023, a Swiss court entered a consent order that gave the Mother custody and use of the marital home, and gave the Father supervised visitation. The order also took away both parents’ ability to travel abroad with the child. Instead, an educational curator held the child’s Swiss and U.S. passports and made those decisions. The Mother asked the curator and the Father whether she could take the child to Missouri to see her ill father. The Father agreed on the condition that the child be back in Switzerland by April 16, 2024. The child was not returned for the Father’s April 17 visit. The next day, the Mother reported to Missouri’s Department of Social Services that the child had made statements suggesting the Father had sexually abused her. The agency found insufficient evidence of abuse. The Mother’s retained psychologist interviewed the child in November 2024 but never met the Father, and he reached the opposite conclusion.
The Father filed his Hague Abduction Convention petition in the Eastern District of Missouri on July 11, 2024, and the Mother answered in August 2024. The hearing was continued multiple times, mostly on joint or consent motions. The evidentiary hearing commenced on July 27, 2026, just over two years after the petition was filed, and continued on August 17, 2026. The court issued its decision on October 9, 2026, about two years and three months after the petition was filed. By then, the child had been in Missouri for more than two years. The court noted that habitual residence is assessed immediately before the removal, not at the time of trial. It found Switzerland was the child’s habitual residence, despite the Mother’s testimony that the family lived a “nomad” life traveling around Europe. Wrongful retention and the Father’s exercise of his rights were essentially undisputed.
On the Mother’s grave risk defense, the court credited her testimony that the Father had thrown her over a restaurant table in front of the child and had verbally abused her. However, it found the risk of this happening again was low. The parties no longer lived together, and the Swiss court had already put supervised visitation and a protective order in place. The court did not find the sexual abuse allegations proven by clear and convincing evidence. It pointed to the conflicting conclusions of the Missouri agency and the Mother’s expert, and noted that the child was not presented for an interview. The court also rejected the Mother’s Article 20 defense. The child was ordered returned to Switzerland.
