HASAN HAFIZ VS. SHIMAA OSMAN (FM-09-0619-14, HUDSON COUNTY AND STATEWIDE) ( 2020 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE
APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the
internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.
SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY
APPELLATE DIVISION
DOCKET NO. A-1823-18T2
HASAN HAFIZ,
Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
SHIMAA OSMAN,
Defendant-Appellant.
Submitted April 28, 2020 - Decided July 13, 2020
Before Judges Accurso and Gilson.
On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey,
Chancery Division, Family Part, Hudson County,
Docket No. FM-09-0619-14.
James R. Lisa, attorney for appellant.
Respondent has not filed a brief.
PER CURIAM
Defendant Shimaa Osman appeals from a November 2, 2018 Family Part
order denying her request to take her daughter on a trip to Egypt. The judge
denied the request primarily because the child's father, plaintiff Hasan Hafiz,
had not had any significant parenting time with the eight-year-old for nearly
nine months. Defendant contends the trial judge abused her discretion in
determining it would be in the child's best interests to remain here for now and
work on forging a stronger relationship with her father by reestablishing his
parenting time schedule. We find defendant's argument lacks sufficient merit
to warrant any extended discussion in a written opinion. R. 2:11-3(e)(1)(E).
By way of brief background, the parties, both of whom were born and
raised in Egypt, married there in 2008. Their daughter was born in Egypt a
little over eighteen months later. Plaintiff was already living in the United
States by that time. Defendant and their daughter joined him here in 2011.
By 2013, the parties' marriage had foundered. They engaged in a highly
acrimonious divorce, replete with charges and counter-charges of child abuse,
necessitating the involvement of the Division of Child Protection and
Permanency. None of the charges was established and the court awarded them
joint legal custody of their daughter. Defendant was designated as the parent
with primary residential custody of the child, and plaintiff was afforded
significant overnight parenting time. The final judgment of divorce, entered in
2017, provided each party with two weeks of vacation with their daughter
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during July and August but prohibited overseas travel without order of the
court.
Defendant has wanted to take their daughter to visit her family in Egypt
since the parties' divorce. Plaintiff, who also has family in Egypt, and has
himself expressed a desire to have their daughter visit her birthplace, has
raised a variety of objections to their daughter traveling to Egypt with
defendant. The parties dislike and mistrust one another, and the acrimony of
their divorce has negatively affected their daughter. Defendant's first
application to take the child to Egypt was denied without prejudice because
neither party had provided the court with information as to the effect the trip
would have on the child's therapy, begun after she expressed a desire to harm
herself.
The current application was heard by the same judge who had presided
over the parties' divorce and was well-familiar with their apparent inability to
put aside their dislike for one another for the well-being of their child. Their
relations were so fraught that the initial custody exchanges were ordered to
occur at the police station. The judge recollected her findings at that time
were that the parties were treating their daughter as a pawn in their divorce.
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Critical to the court's decision on this motion was the revelation that
plaintiff had not had any significant parenting time with the parties' daughter
in over eight months. Defendant did not deny that plaintiff had not seen their
daughter, but claimed the child, then eight-and-a-half, did not want to see her
father, and that he had not made a motion to enforce his parenting time.
Plaintiff countered that he had cross-moved to enforce his parenting time on
defendant's prior motion to permit the child to visit Egypt, and that the court
had entered an order enforcing his parenting time.
The judge made clear that she could not determine which party was at
fault for plaintiff's failure to exercise his parenting time, notwithstanding that
defendant had attempted to thwart plaintiff's parenting time in the past.
Applying the factors 1 in Abouzahr v. Matera-Abouzahr, 361 N.J. Super. 135,
156 (App. Div. 2003), especially "the relationship between the parents" and
"the character and integrity of the parent seeking out-of-country visitation as
gleaned from past comments and conduct," the judge determined she could not
1
The factors include: "the laws, practices and policies of the foreign nation,
. . . the domicile and roots of the parent seeking such visitation, the reason for
the visit, the safety and security of the child, the age and attitude of the child to
the visit, the relationship between the parents, the propriety and practicality of
a bond or other security and the character and integrity of the parent seeking
out-of-country visitation as gleaned from past comments and conduct.
Abouzahr, 361 N.J. Super. at 156.
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conclude it was in the child's best interests to spend weeks in Egypt with
defendant before the court had a better understanding of why the child was not
seeing plaintiff and could take steps to reinstate parenting time in an effort to
strengthen their relationship.
Defendant has given us no reason to second-guess the judge's carefully
considered approach. See Hand v. Hand, 391 N.J. Super. 102, 111-12 (App.
Div. 2007).
Affirmed.
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