Michelle Monasky, the petitioner, decided American men just weren’t for her, and so she decided to marry this Italian prick Domenico Taglieri. They were married in the US, but after a couple years later, moved to Italy.

Taglieri was an abusive fuck, but apparently in a moment of intimacy, got Monasky pregnant. Monasky and Taglieri split up in Italy for work reasons, and resided a couple hours from each other. While she was pregnant, she eventually decided she’d had enough of Taglieri’s bullshit, and began considering coming home to the USA.

Once the baby was born, she applied for a visa for the tyke, and came home.

Taglieri, didn’t find this funny at all. So he sued in an Italian court to have the child returned.

The Hague Convention that most civilized countries are a part of, has rules against one parent taking a baby out of its home country, to get away from another parent, without expressed permission. However the wording is a little vague, because they don’t say, “from the country the child was born in” or a very objective term like that.

Instead, they wrote it as “under the law of the State in which the child was habitually resident immediately before the removal.”

Since the kid was only a couple months old, it wasn’t even old enough to have a fucking habit. It was in Never-Never-Land as far as it knew.

A district court agreed Monasky must return her child to Italy, according to Hague rules. But, she’s fighting it as you might expect, arguing that her child wasn’t old enough to be “habitual” at anything.

And besides, Taglieri is a physically abusive prick, remember?

So now she’s asking SCOTUS to tell the district court they’re a bunch of morons, and rule in favor of her, saying that she didn’t violate Hague Convention rules, and allow her to keep her child here in the USA.

SCOTUS reviewed and unanimously sided with Taglieri. A child’s habitual residence is based on the all the information about their residence, not some bullshit agreement between the parents or something. For his short ass little life, the kid was Italian. So he is to be returned to Italy until this shit can be settled otherwise.

 

Argument preview: Justices return to international child-custody convention

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2019/18-935