Etienne Jean Poix v. Espaillat Santana

Background

On October 17, 2022, the court issued findings of fact and legal conclusions granting Petitioner Joseph Marcel Etienne Jean Poix’s petition for the return of M.G.E. and A.F.E. to the Dominican Republic. The court ordered Respondent Susibel Altagracia Espaillat Santana to return the children by November 7, 2022. On November 4, the respondent appealed the October 17 order and moved for a stay, meaning a temporary pause, while the appeal was pending.

Stay factors

The court applied four factors used to decide whether to pause an order during an appeal: whether the person seeking the pause is likely to succeed, whether that person will suffer harm that cannot later be repaired without a pause, whether the pause will substantially harm other interested parties, and where the public interest lies.

The court concluded that three factors clearly favored denying a stay. First, based on its earlier findings, the court viewed the respondent as unlikely to succeed on the narrow question of whether the Hague Convention required the children’s return. Second, delaying the return would harm the petitioner, who had not seen the children for well over a year, and would deprive the children of time to readjust to life in their country of habitual residence. Third, the public interest favored the Hague Convention’s purpose of securing the prompt return of children wrongfully removed to or kept in another country.

The court also concluded that the remaining factor—irreparable harm to the respondent—did not favor a stay. Returning the children would not make the respondent’s appeal moot, and the court stated that she should be able to bring the children back to the United States if the district court’s decision were reversed because she retained temporary guardianship of them in the Dominican Republic.

Ruling

Despite these conclusions, the court noted that district courts in the circuit often grant short temporary stays to allow a respondent to seek emergency relief from the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Judge John P. Cronan therefore granted a one-week stay of the October 17 return order. No further stay was to be granted by the district court. Unless the Court of Appeals granted the respondent relief or otherwise further stayed the October 17 order, the respondent had to return M.G.E. and A.F.E. to the Dominican Republic by Monday, November 14, 2022.