United States Third Circuit

In a child custody dispute, a grant of a mother's petition for the child's return under the Hague Convention of the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is affirmed and the minor child's immediate return to her mother in the Netherlands is ordered where: 1) the district court's findings of fact were not clearly erroneous; and 2) the application of the unclean hands doctrine would undermine the Hague Convention's goal of protecting the well-being of the child, of restoring the status quo before the child's abduction, and of ensuring that rights of custody and of access under the law of one Contracting State are effectively respected in the other Contracting States.

Appellate Information

• Argued 07/12/2010
• Decided 08/24/2010
• Published 08/24/2010

Judges

• ROTH

Court

• United States Third Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Stephen J. Cullen, Linda Shay Gardner