The 14-year-old "Ellen" returned with her mother to the United States, but declined to see her father. Foretich sued in 1997, and the law was overturned as a bill of attainder by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 2003, but had no practical effect on Hilary, who was by then 21 and could choose for herself whether or not to see her father. Hilary Foretich, who had gone by the assumed name Ellen Morgan while in New Zealand, started calling herself Elena Mitrano.