Lozano v. Montoya Alvarez
The Supreme Court ruled that the one-year filing deadline in the Hague Convention on child abduction cannot be paused, or "equitably tolled," even when the parent who took the child concealed the child's location.
Because the treaty's one-year period isn't a true deadline that cuts off relief -- courts can still weigh the child's interest in staying put after a year -- and because the treaty's drafters never agreed to let courts pause the clock, a father who searched for 16 months before finding his daughter in New York could not get the automatic return he sought.
“The continued availability of the return remedy after one year preserves the possibility of relief for the left-behind parent and prevents repose for the abducting parent.”
Explaining why the one-year period is not a true statute of limitations that can be equitably tolled.
How it got here: A federal trial court and the Second Circuit both denied the father's return petition as untimely and declined to pause the one-year deadline, and he asked the Supreme Court to review that ruling.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A British father and mother separated after the mother reported abuse and left with their young daughter, first to a women's shelter and then, in 2009, to New York to live with her sister. The father searched for the child in England for months before locating her in New York in late 2010 -- more than 16 months after she had left the United Kingdom -- and then sought her return under an international child-abduction treaty.
The question before the Court
If a parent hides an abducted child abroad for over a year, does the one-year deadline to seek the child's return under the Hague Convention get paused during the hiding?
The Court's answer
No -- the one-year filing period in Article 12 of the Hague Convention cannot be paused even when the parent who took the child hid her location. The Court explained that pausing deadlines, known as equitable tolling, is something American courts assume Congress wants for its own statutes, but that assumption doesn't automatically carry over to international treaties, which reflect an agreement among many countries rather than a decision by Congress alone.
The Court also found that the one-year period isn't really a filing deadline at all in the usual sense, because missing it doesn't cut off the parent's chance at getting the child back -- courts can still order return after one year, just after considering whether the child has settled into a new home. Since no shared understanding among the treaty's signer countries supported pausing the clock, and the treaty's text ties the period to the date of removal rather than discovery, the deadline stands as written.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Parents who conceal an abducted child abroad for more than a year will not automatically lose because of the delay, but the other parent also cannot get an automatic return simply by showing concealment. Courts must instead weigh whether the child has settled into a new life, though judges retain discretion to order return anyway when a parent's hiding was especially unfair.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision resolving the legal question, so no further Supreme Court proceedings occur. The case does not return to the lower courts for reconsideration on this point, since the father did not separately challenge the district court's refusal to order return as a matter of discretion. Future disputes under the treaty will proceed under the rule that the one-year period runs from removal and cannot be paused, though courts retain discretion to order return of a settled child in appropriate cases.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether, or when, a judge can still order a child's return as a matter of discretion even after the child is found to be "settled" in a new country -- the concurrence discusses this discretion, but the majority expressly left that question open since it wasn't raised on appeal in this case.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Alito
Justice Alito agreed fully with the majority but wrote separately to explain why courts still have discretion under the treaty to order a child's return even after the child has become settled in a new country. He argued this discretion -- allowing judges to weigh factors like concealment by the abducting parent -- prevents the ruling from turning the United States into a haven for abductors, since bad-faith concealment can still be held against that parent even without equitable tolling.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court began by explaining that equitable tolling -- the practice of pausing a legal deadline when someone was diligent but blocked by extraordinary circumstances -- is presumed to apply to ordinary U.S. statutes of limitations because Congress is assumed to legislate against that longstanding background rule.
- Because the Hague Convention is a treaty -- an agreement among sovereign nations, not a law passed by Congress -- the Court held that this American presumption does not automatically transfer to treaty deadlines; a background rule only applies if the treaty's other signing countries shared it too.
- Looking at how other signatory countries' courts had treated the same one-year period, the Court found several had explicitly rejected pausing it, showing no shared international understanding in favor of equitable tolling.
- The Court then asked whether the one-year period even functions like a true statute of limitations, which exists to give defendants certainty and repose. It concluded the period does not, because a court can still order the child's return after one year -- the deadline instead opens the door to weighing the child's own interest in staying in her new home.
- Because the treaty's text starts the one-year clock on the date of wrongful removal and includes no language delaying that start until the child is found, the Court concluded the drafters deliberately chose not to allow the clock to be paused during concealment.
- The Court rejected the argument that pausing the deadline was necessary to deter child abduction, noting the treaty already limits the return remedy in other ways and that concealment can itself be counted against a parent when courts decide whether a child has truly settled.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Young v. United States (535 U. S. 43)
The Court said the tax-lookback deadline in Young served repose and certainty, unlike the Hague Convention's differently structured one-year period.