Moreau v. White

── Moreau v. White ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Date: May 15, 2026 Category: Private Civil Federal Case: 25-40031 Document: 143-1 Page: 1 Date Filed: 05/15/2026 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit _____________ United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit No. 25-40031 consolidated with FILED No. 25-40364 May 15, 2026 _____________ Lyle W. Cayce Clerk Sarah S.C. Moreau, Plaintiff—Appellee, versus Andrew Christopher White, Defendant—Appellant. ______________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas USDC Nos. 4:24-CV-857, 4:24-CV-857 ______________________________ Before Jones and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges, and Summerhays, District Judge. * Kurt D. Engelhardt, Circuit Judge: Plaintiff-Appellee Sarah S.C. Moreau has availed herself of both the Texas and Canadian courts in contesting a six-year long child custody dispute with Defendant-Appellant Andrew Christopher White. Moreau lands in _____________________ * United States District Judge for the Western District of Louisiana, sitting by designation. Case: 25-40031 Document: 143-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 05/15/2026 25-40031 c/w No. 25-40364 federal court under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. If the kitchen was not filled with enough cooks already, the federal courts joined the fray. But make no mistake, this Hague Convention case is not like the others. Moreau filed a Hague Convention petition against White in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. She argued White wrongfully retained their two children in Texas in violation of Moreau’s Canadian rights of custody. After a bench trial, the district court agreed and ordered the children’s return to Canada, as required by the Convention. White continued to litigate the custody battle in Texas, so the district court preliminarily enjoined White and two Texas judges from doing so. It ordered the Canadian courts to adjudicate custody. White challenges both orders. We AFFIRM the district court’s judgment ordering the return of the children to Canada but VACATE its preliminary injunction. I. We recount the following facts from the district court’s Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law (“Return Order”), Moreau v. White, No. 24- CV-857, 2025 WL 227793 (E.D. Tex. Jan. 17, 2025), and other parts of the record. Texas and Canadian Custody Proceedings Our story starts in 2014, when Moreau and White—a married couple—moved from New York to Texas. In the years following the move, they had two children. But by August 2018 Moreau had filed a petition in Dallas County, Texas, seeking to divorce White and retain custody of the children. The Texas court appointed Moreau as temporary sole managing conservator and White as temporary possessory conservator. At the end of 2 Case: 25-40031 Document: 143-1 Page: 3 Date Filed: 05/15/2026 25-40031 c/w No. 25-40364 2019, the Texas court granted Moreau the temporary right to