Mother and Father divorced in Wyoming in 2016. They are parents to one child. The Wyoming Court awarded Father custody, with Mother having 10 days of visitation each month. The Mother resided, and continues to reside, in Russia. In 2018, the Father and child moved to Russia, spent the 2019 summer in Morocco, and then moved to Bahrain. In November 2019, the mother filed a motion to modify custody in the Wyoming court. Father moved to dismiss, and in February 2020, filed a parallel custody proceeding in Bahrain. The Bahraini court stayed its proceeding awaiting a decision from the Wyoming court. Subsequently, in April 2020, the Mother filed a motion for an order to show cause, arguing the Father frustrated her visitation, alienated the child, and should be held in contempt. The Wyoming court granted the Father’s motion to dismiss, and the Mother appeals the dismissal of her motion for an order to show cause only.

In this particular case, the Wyoming courts determined that it retained continuing, exclusive jurisdiction. The court did not opine why, and no one was residing in Wyoming at the time of the modification and contempt suits. But, giving the court the benefit of the doubt because this particular appeal was narrowed significantly, if a court has jurisdiction, it may decline it on the basis that it is no longer a convenient forum. The UCCJEA outlines a variety of factors a court must consider in its forum non conveniens analysis, and, in this case, nearly all evidence pointed towards Bahrain being a more convenient forum. The child was already in Bahrain, there were open proceedings, the child had been interviewed by the Bahraini court, the Wyoming court could not adequately protect the child overseas if it issued orders, it could not appoint a lawyer for the child overseas, and most evidence was either in Bahrain or in Russia.