Ahearn v. Burch

Rensselaer County, seeking a judgment directing respondent Burch to surrender custody of the infant to them. Special Term granted the application from the Bench, referring to this court’s July 29 decision and noting that respondent’s subsequent motion for a stay had been denied by the Court of Appeals on September 9, 1982. The instant appeal ensued.^[1] In essence, respondent now argues that although this court in Decatur v Ahearn (supra) dismissed, on the ground oí forum non conveniens, her New York action which sought, inter alia, a declaration that the adoption decree granted to the Ahearns is invalid, that doctrine may not now be used to preclude an inquiry into the legality of the decree in the context of the instant proceeding which the Ahearns themselves brought in a court of this State. In the alternative, it is contended that if our prior decision does require application of the doctrine in this proceeding, Special Term should not have entertained the Ahearns’ petition but rather should have dismissed it leaving the parties to whatever remedies they may have in the Massachusetts courts. Finally, respondent urges that before affording full faith and credit Special Term was obliged to examine the validity of the Massachusetts adoption decree in the face of her collateral attack on the decree, which, it is claimed, was obtained in violation of her due process rights.^[2] While we agree with respondent that the doctrine of forum non conveniens may not be used as a shield by parties who have themselves selected the forum, we do not perceive the application of the doctrine as the basis of Special Term’s determination nor, under the circumstances, do we conclude that that court was required to entertain respondent’s collateral attack on the adoption decree. Although respondent spends much time in discussing and distinguishing our forum non conveniens rationale set forth in Decatur v Ahearn (supra), she overlooks our holding in the companion case of Matter of Burch v Ahearn (supra). In Matter of Burch, we specifically held that the provisions of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (Domestic Relations Law, art 5-A), as interpreted by the Court of Appeals in Vanneck v Vanneck ( 49 NY2d 602 ), required that the courts of this State not exercise jurisdiction over proceedings to determine custody of the infant in view of the pendency of such proceedings in Massachusetts and the lack of significant contacts with this State (see Domestic Relations Law, § 75-g, subd 1; § 75-d, subd 1, par [b]). To now hold that in the instant proceeding Special Term was required to adjudicate respondent’s collateral attack on the adoption decree would, in our view, not only be incongruous with our prior decision but would also frustrate one of the express purposes of the act to “avoid jurisdictional competition and conflict with courts of other states in matters of child custody which have in the past resulted in the shifting of children from state to state with harmful effects on their well-being” (Domestic Relations Law, § 75-b, subd 1, par [a]). Moreover, section 75-n of the Domestic Relations Law provides that the courts of this State shall recognize and enforce a custody decree of another State which had assumed jurisdiction “under statutory provisions substantially in accordance with this article or which was made under factual circumstances meeting the jurisdictional standards of this article”. Since it is clear from this record that the Massachusetts court had properly assumed jurisdiction over the proceedings pending before it, the adoption decree in question was correctly recognized and enforced by Special Term (see, e.g., Clark v Clark, 67 AD2d 388 ). Lastly, we reiterate the observation made in our