Maryland's highest court yesterday affirmed a $3 million judgment in favor of an Anne Arundel County man whose sons were illegally taken to Egypt by their mother and grandmother six years ago, handing down a decision that experts said allows parents to seek damages from family members who abduct their children.
The Court of Appeals found that Nermeen Khalifa Shannon and her mother, Afaf N. Khalifa, had planned the "particularly heinous" abductions of Adam Shannon, then 4, and Jason, less than a year old, and that their father, Michael Shannon of Millersville, has the right to seek civil relief. The court also rejected the women's claim that the award was excessive.
The Khalifas "consciously and knowingly have deprived a father of the love and comfort of his two children for an extended period of time," the court said in an opinion written by Judge Lynne A. Battaglia. " ... Evidence of the ongoing absence of the children also indicates to us that [Michael] Shannon will never be fully compensated for the loss of society and companionship that he suffered at the hands of the appellants."
The ruling carries no legal weight in Egypt, where the two boys are believed to be living in a lavish Cairo compound, but Bryce D. Neier, a North Carolina attorney concentrating in domestic law and international child abduction and custody cases, said it was the first time he'd heard of a parent in the United States filing a civil lawsuit against another parent over an international kidnapping.
"In my opinion, this is groundbreaking," he said. "Obviously, I think this particular case from Maryland is about to cause an avalanche of other parents trying to do the same thing."
Jeremy Morley, a New York-based international family law attorney, said he didn't have hard numbers but that international child abductions are "an enormous problem.
"We only see the tip of the iceberg. Many cases are never reported," he said.
Michael Shannon, a 47-year-old retail manager, last saw his children on Aug. 18, 2001, when he handed them off to his wife, from whom he was later divorced, for what he thought was a trip to New York City. He said he has never stopped fighting to be reunited with his boys, but the ruling has given him a sense of vindication, at least in the legal sense:
"I can see, 50 years from now, that there'll be lawyers citing Shannon v. Khalifa."
