Jeremy Morley at International Family Law reports:
The abduction of children from the United States is facilitated by the lack of exit controls at U.S. borders. A lawsuit just filed in Massachusetts against Continental Airlines may help shift at least some of the responsibility onto the airlines.
Jeremy Morley at International Family Law reports:
The abduction of children from the United States is facilitated by the lack of exit controls at U.S. borders. A lawsuit just filed in Massachusetts against Continental Airlines may help shift at least some of the responsibility onto the airlines.
The plaintiff claims that Continental should not have allowed his ex-wife to fly to Mexico with their 3-year-old daughter without his permission. He contends that Continental’s policies and Mexican law both require a single parent traveling with a minor child to present a notarized letter from the absent parent authorizing travel into Mexico.
In 2005, a Connecticut jury returned a $27 million verdict against a charter airline company in favor of a mother for negligently failing to maintain adequate safeguards against abductions when it accepted $160,000 to fly a father and his three children to Egypt and then to Cuba.
This opens the door to what [may] prove to be a useful way to encourage the airlines to act more diligently to prevent international child abduction.
More on this story at South Coast Today.
Earlier this week Custody battle exposes difficulties with international law was published at Yakima Herald (WA) covering the nightmare of children taken to foreign countries even in violation of a court order. Some courts now require a parent to post a bond for the safe return of a child before permitting international travel where the risk of abduction is high.
