Marriage of Nurie

Ghulum Nurie (plaintiff), an American citizen of Pakistani descent, resided in California and maintained his residence there. Nurie married Fizza Rizvi (defendant) in Pakistan on October 30, 2001. Rizvi moved into Nurie’s California home and gave birth to their child in California in September 2002. Rizvi took the child to Pakistan in February 2003 and refused to return to California with the child. In June of 2003, Nurie filed a petition in a California trial court for dissolution of the marriage, seeking custody of the child under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act (UCCJEA). On July 29, 2003, the California court granted temporary custody to Nurie, and Rizvi was served in September 2003 in Pakistan. In October 2003, Rizvi filed for custody in Pakistan. In November 2003, the California court, which viewed Pakistan as a sister state pursuant to the UCCJEA, found California had home-state jurisdiction beginning in June 2003, when Nurie’s dissolution action began, and awarded sole legal and physical custody to Nurie. Nurie filed the California custody order in the Pakistani court, and the Pakistani court dismissed Rizvi’s matter, deferring jurisdiction to the California court. Nonetheless, for the next four years, Nurie and Rizvi bitterly litigated in California and Pakistan. International arrest warrants were issued for custody interference amid competing accusations of stonings and an attempted kidnapping at gunpoint. In October 2007, under disputed circumstances that Rizvi characterized as a kidnapping, Nurie took the child to California. In February 2008, in response to a petition Rizvi filed in the California court to recognize the Pakistani court’s orders, the California court found that its home-state jurisdiction had been properly determined in November 2003 and the California custody order was valid and enforceable. The California court subsequently reaffirmed its exclusive and continuing jurisdiction under the UCCJEA and held that California never lost jurisdiction as a result of Nurie’s visits to Pakistan or as a result of the alleged kidnapping. Rizvi appealed. One of Rizvi’s many arguments was that Pakistan and California had concurrent jurisdiction beginning with her initial filing in Pakistani court in October 2003.