Ruling Keeps U.S. Courts Out of Interstate Child Custody Battles

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that federal courts have no power to resolve child custody disputes extending across state lines, rejecting the plea of a Los Angeles doctor whose former wife took their son to Louisiana.

The justices, basing their ruling on an interpretation of the Parental Child Kidnaping Act, ruled unanimously that Congress did not mean for federal courts to get involved in custody battles when it passed the 1980 law. Rather, the court concluded, the lawmakers merely wanted to ensure that state courts would honor custody decrees from other states.

Lawyers and activists for children’s rights groups predicted that the ruling will encourage more parents to flee with their children to escape custody orders. Congress has estimated that between 25,000 and 100,000 children are kidnaped each year by parents involved in custody battles.

They also said the case before the high court illustrates how the 1980 law has failed. A Louisiana state court in 1981 granted Dr. Susan Clay Thompson custody of her son Matthew, now 10. A few months later, a state court in Los Angeles that had earlier handled their divorce granted sole custody to the father, Dr. David Thompson of Flintridge.

Neither court has acknowledged that the other has jurisdiction to finally decide who has custody in the case (Thompson vs. Thompson, 86-964).

“Children are going to suffer because of this,” said Josanna Berkow, a deputy attorney general for California, in reaction to the ruling. “This is going to result in more protracted litigation, with no guarantee of a resolution.”

Attorneys for California and three other states urged the justices to allow federal courts to decide such disputes between state courts. “We didn’t think they (federal judges) should decide who is the better parent. We just wanted them to say whether state A or state B had jurisdiction,” Berkow said.

However, Justice Thurgood Marshall, in writing for the high court, said a close reading of the 1980 law shows that Congress did not intend federal courts to intervene in this way. State courts usually handle all matters relating to marriage, divorce and child custody, Marshall concluded, and Congress did not plan to change that.

David Thompson, who said he has not seen his son in seven years, has no plans to continue the legal fight. “I think this is the end of it. I have done what any kind of parent would do. But the court has an apparent lack of sympathy with this predicament,” he said in a telephone interview.

‘Short-Circuit the System’

A lawyer representing Susan Thompson, Kenneth Rigby of Shreveport, La., applauded the high court’s interpretation, saying David Thompson “tried to short-circuit the system” when he took the dispute to a federal court in Los Angeles in 1983. That court and later the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that they had no power to intervene.

Rigby said the proper course would have been to contest the Louisiana court decree in Shreveport in 1981. Only after David Thompson had taken his case before all levels of the Louisiana court system could he seek intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court, Rigby said.

But Steven Basha, a deputy county counsel in Sacramento, countered: “That’s not a very realistic alternative, and it’s very unfair to Dr. Thompson.”

“The incentive now is to create a jurisdictional deadlock and to delay the process, perhaps forever,” said Basha, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of California county officials and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

He and other lawyers said they will urge Congress to amend the 1980 law to say specifically that federal courts should intervene when two state courts cannot agree.

Tuesday’s ruling “effectively makes the (federal) statute a waste of time,” said David Thompson’s attorney, Ronald Weiss of Tustin. “The state courts can ignore custody orders from other states, and there is no way to enforce them.”

Weiss said the frustrating legal battle has shown that the system does not work. It is unfair and unreasonable, he said, to force the Los Angeles doctor to do battle in a Louisiana court when he has already won sole custody of his son in a California court.

“I have no intention of going to Louisiana and getting bogged down in more years of litigation,” said David Thompson, a neurologist who practices in Glendale.

Warrant for Arrest

In fact, if David Thompson were to visit Louisiana, he could be arrested. A court there holds a bench warrant for him because of an earlier attempt he made to take back his son, Weiss said. Meanwhile, the Superior Court in Los Angeles has an arrest warrant for Susan Thompson in California because she has taken her son away from the state.

Julie Cartwright, a spokesman for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Washington, said hundreds of parents contact the center each year seeking help in recovering children who have been kidnaped by the other parent.

Tuesday’s high court ruling leaves them no avenue for pursuing a remedy in federal courts. “This decision is a clear message to Congress that it is their responsibility to amend the Parental Kidnaping Prevention Act,” Cartwright said, to give federal courts clear authority to resolve disputes between the states.