Hague Convention / cross-border custody
Texas custody order falls after court reached into Canada
A Fifth Circuit panel vacated a Texas judge’s cross-border injunction, saying he went too far by telling Canadian courts how to handle a Hague custody dispute. The custody case continues, but the foreign-court order does not.
The Fifth Circuit vacated a Texas injunction after finding the lower court tried to direct Canadian courts in a Hague custody dispute. The custody case continues, but the foreign-court order does not.
- The Fifth Circuit vacated a Texas injunction in a Hague custody fight.
- Judges said a U.S. court cannot direct Canadian courts what to do.
- The ruling turns on comity, not on who should win custody.
- The underlying custody dispute is still separate from the injunction issue.
- For parents fighting over a child across a border, the Fifth Circuit’s message is blunt: a federal judge in Texas can rule on the case before him, but he cannot reach into Canada and direct a Canadian court
For parents fighting over a child across a border, the Fifth Circuit’s message is blunt: a federal judge in Texas can rule on the case before him, but he cannot reach into Canada and direct a Canadian court. The panel vacated the district court’s preliminary injunction and the part of the return order that told Canadian courts how to act, saying that instruction crossed a line of comity.
A line at the border
The case sits inside the Hague Convention, the international treaty that helps courts sort cross-border custody disputes. The appellate judges said Texas courts can decide their own jurisdiction under that framework and Supreme Court precedent. What they cannot do, the panel said, is issue a command that assumes authority over a foreign court.
The dispute involves Sarah S.C. Moreau and Andrew Christopher White, but the ruling does not turn on rehashing where the children’s home base is. Instead, it focuses on the court’s reach. The Fifth Circuit said the district court’s directive to Canadian courts affronted important comity principles, the respect one nation’s courts owe another’s.
What disappears from the case
Once the foreign-court instruction fell, the Texas injunction built on it could not stand either. The practical effect is that the lower court’s cross-border order is gone, even though the broader custody fight is still alive in the background.
That leaves the parties back in a narrower legal posture. The Fifth Circuit did not resolve the family’s underlying custody dispute here. It drew a boundary around what a U.S. judge may do when a domestic order starts trying to control proceedings on Canadian soil.