In re Marriage of Nurie

In In re Marriage of Nurie (2009) 176 Cal.App.4th 478, the court had to determine whether California or Pakistan was the home state of a child who was born in California and lived in California with both parents until he was five months old, when he was taken to Pakistan by his mother for a family visit but was kept in Pakistan for another four months before the father initiated the custody proceedings in California. (Nurie, supra, 176 Cal.App.4th at p. 485.) Because the child lived in two different jurisdictions before the father initiated custody proceedings, the court looked to the mother's intent in leaving California for Pakistan in order to determine whether the child's absence from California was "'temporary.'" (Id. at p. 493, fn. 12.) The court did not address the narrow issue of what it means "to live" in a state for purposes of home state jurisdiction. On the contrary, the court assumed the child was "living" in California when he traveled to Pakistan with his mother. (Nurie, supra, 176 Cal.App.4th at p. 493, fn. 12.) The child then remained in Pakistan for four months. (Ibid.) The child was thus "living" in Pakistan at the time the custody proceedings commenced. With the child having now "lived" in multiple jurisdictions prior to commencement of the proceedings in California, the court was required to consider whether the child's time in Pakistan was a permanent relocation or a temporary absence from California. (Nurie, supra, 176 Cal.App.4th at p. 493, fn. 12.) To make that determination, the court looked to the mother's subjective intent. (Ibid.) In so doing, the court found that when the mother left California with the child in February 2003, she intended to return and her intent to return remained until May 2003, when she decided to stay in Pakistan with the child. (Ibid.) Accordingly, the court ruled that the period of time in which the child was living in Pakistan and the mother intended to return to California was a temporary absence from California. (Nurie, supra, 176 Cal.App.4th at p. 493, fn. 12.) The court found that to be a four-month period. (Ibid.) Those four months were then appended to the time the child lived in California, and California was found to be the home state because it was the only state in which the child lived for six months prior to the custody proceedings. (Ibid.)