Articles Posted in Custody/Time-Sharing

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A recent ruling by the Third District Court of Appeal sided against a Native American mother in her attempt to invoke the jurisdiction of the Miccosukee Tribal Court to resolve a custody dispute regarding two children she shared with a man who was not Native American. The decision has substantial impact for South Florida and the Miccosukee Tribe, which is situated in the Everglades just to the west of Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

While the issue of custody of children who are part Native American has been prominently litigated recently, including the “Baby Veronica” case which went all the way to the US Supreme Court, the dispute between a mother who was a member of the Miccosukee Tribe, and a father who was not Native American, involved a different aspect of the law. This case did not involve resolving custody based upon the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, as was the case in the “Baby Veronica” matter, but rather the the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act.

The case began when a custody dispute cropped up between the parents and the mother filed for custody in the Miccosukee Tribal Court. The court held a hearing and awarded custody to the mother. The father then filed in the 11th Circuit Court in Miami. The mother sought to shut down the father’s case, arguing that the tribal court had resolved the matter and that, under the terms of the UCCJEA, the Florida court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate the dispute.
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When going to court for a determination of timesharing, it is important to understand what the judge can and cannot do. Florida’s law regarding the establishment of a timesharing plan for a divorcing couple’s children is based upon a public policy that strongly favors giving a child “frequent and continuing contact” with each parent unless evidence exists showing that this contact poses a risk of harm to the welfare of the child. Absent this danger to the welfare of the child, courts cannot cut off one parent. This rule is what led the 4th District Court of Appeal to reject a recent timesharing plan created by a Broward County trial court.

The case involved the child of R.L. and E.D. R.L. (the mother) filed for divorce and sought primary physical custody of the couple’s only child. The mother requested that the father receive only supervised visits with the child, claiming a concern about emotional and physical abuse by the father. At a hearing on timesharing, the mother told a trial court magistrate judge that the father had not been in Florida in more than a half-decade and knew nothing about the child’s education, activities or medical condition. The father did not show up for that hearing.

The magistrate judge awarded the mother 100% timesharing of the child. The magistrate judge’s recommendation concluded that the father did not know the child and the child did not know who the father was, so it would be inappropriate for the father to have any timesharing. The trial judge approved the magistrate’s recommendation.
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A father’s desired move with his two sons from Florida to New Jersey fell flat because, although he persuaded a trial court judge to OK the relocation, the trial court order failed to make findings that the move benefited the children. The 5th District Court of Appeal reversed the ruling, stating that the evidence in the case demonstrated a move in the best interest of the father, not the children.

After the husband and wife separated early in 2013, a trial court entered an order establishing the pair’s equal time-sharing of their two children. A few months later, the husband sought the court’s permission to relocate, with the children, to New Jersey, so that he could continue pursuing his pharmacy degree. The husband stated that the move was in the children’s best interest because he could provide the children with an excellent home and education in New Jersey, and that the completion of his pharmacy degree would greatly increase his earning potential and ability to provide for the children.

Both parents agreed to allow the court consider a custodial evaluation report prepared by a psychologist. The doctor advised against moving the children away from their Brevard County home, where they’d lived their entire lives. Nevertheless, the trial court sided with the husband and approved the move. The court found that, despite the extraordinarily contentious nature of the couple’s divorce, the husband sought the relocation “in good faith.” The court did not find, however, that the move would be in the best interest of the children.
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An ex-husband successfully secured primary physical custody of the four children he shared with his ex-wife, but failed to persuade a trial court to order his ex-wife to pay child support on all four children. That’s because a governmental agency already paid a monthly stipend for the fourth child and, since the trial court’s custody modification order gave that stipend to the husband, a Florida appeals court determined that it was not improper to refrain from making the ex-wife pay child support on that child.

J.L.B. and his wife, S.J.B., divorced in 2008. Initially following the divorce, the wife held primary physical custody of the children. Following an incident in which the Florida Department of Children and Families removed the couple’s children from the wife’s home, the husband asked an Orange County court to give him sole custody of the children or, at least, make him the primary physical custodian. The court agreed and ordered that the husband receive majority time-sharing within a joint custody arrangement.

As part of this ruling, the court also assessed a child support obligation to the wife. The husband promptly appealed the child support portion of the court’s ruling. The husband argued that the trial made an error by calculating the wife’s support obligation based on three children, when the couple shared custody of four children.
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A recent court of appeals decision put a screeching halt to a mother’s attempt to relocate her daughter from central Florida to Indiana. The 5th District Court of Appeal’s ruling affirmed a lower court’s decision that the move was not in the daughter’s best interests, concluding that the mother was motivated by a desire to maintain physical distance between the daughter and the father, and to block contact between the two.

This couple divorced in 2008 in California, and the court approved a marital settlement agreement that included a 50-50 time-sharing arrangement for the couple’s one daughter. The mother and the daughter soon moved to central Florida. In an effort to be closer to his daughter, the father moved to Orlando in the summer of 2010.

Just three months later, the mother abruptly relocated her family, including the daughter, to Indiana, where the mother’s husband had received a job offer. The father asked the court to order the return of his daughter. After a failed telephonic mediation, the mother petitioned the court to approve the relocation to Indiana.
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In a groundbreaking decision earlier this month, a sharply divided Florida Supreme Court concluded that a woman who donated her eggs to her lesbian partner so that the couple could have, and raise, a child together possesses a fundamental constitutional right to parent the child. In the process, the court declared unconstitutional a statute that created an automatic waiver of the parental rights of all reproductive material donors, concluding that the statute, as applied to the lesbian egg donor, violated her Due Process rights.

The case involved the custody of the daughter of a lesbian couple. In 2003, the couple set about to have a child. They used one partner’s egg, but the other partner carried and delivered the child. The couple gave birth to the daughter in January 2004. Two years later, though, the relationship failed and the birth mother cut off all contact in December 2007.

The other partner, known in the court documents as “T.M.H.,” filed a legal action to establish her parental rights to the daughter. The birth mother challenged the action, arguing that Florida law afforded T.M.H. no parental rights and that, by signing an “informed consent” form, T.M.H. had surrendered all parental rights. The trial court ruled in favor of the birth mother, but the 5th District Court of Appeal reversed, concluding that the Florida Statute governing donated reproductive material was unconstitutional as applied to T.M.H.
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Just three short months after Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade’s divorce became final, a Florida appeals court was again called upon to enter a decision in the half-decade long legal contest. The 3d District Court of Appeal overturned a trial court’s order requiring the NBA star’s ex-wife to undergo a mental evaluation and also removed the trial court judge from the case, citing his denial of the “most basic right of due process” to the ex-wife, Siohvaughn Funches.

Many of the facts of Wade’s ill-fated marriage are well-known by now. Wade and Funches married in 2002, had two sons, and filed for divorce in 2007. The divorce proceeding turned into a marathon affair, becoming final only three months ago. In the property settlement, Wade agreed to pay Funches $25,000 in alimony, with another $10,000 in travel and living expenses. The basketball star also agreed to pay Funches’ mortgage and gave her the use of four cars.

This outcome apparently displeased the ex-wife, as Funches took to the streets of her hometown of Chicago. Funches stages a public protest claiming that the divorce had left her “on the streets.” Wade’s legal team fired back, returning to court to argue that Funches’ protest demonstrated her mental instability and dangerousness and requested that the court order a psychological evaluation of the woman and reduce her contact with the boys. Trial court judge Antonio Marin ordered the evaluation.
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A recent case, involving a Pennsylvania man and his biological child living in Florida, demonstrated the significant differences that sometimes exist between science and the law. A Florida appeals court both denied the biological father’s effort to litigate his custody dispute in his home state, and foreclosed his efforts to make a claim anywhere regarding custody of the child. The man’s resounding defeat resulted from several shortcomings, including his flouting custody orders and, in particular, his lack of legal relationship to the child because the mother was married to another man at the time of the child’s birth.

The case revolved around a child born to a couple in 2004. The child’s birth certificate listed the husband as the father; however, he was not the father. The child was the product of the mother’s relationship with another man. The child resided with the maternal grandmother from birth. The mother died in 2008, still married to the husband. After the mother’s death, the grandmother sought custody and the husband consented. At this point, the father sought to intervene and asked the court to declare him the child’s father and award him custody. The trial court concluded that the husband had severed his parental rights by abandoning the child, declared the biological father the father and awarded him custody.

Following a reversal of the ruling by the 1st District Court of Appeal, the grandmother re-obtained legal custody. The father, however, refused to hand over the child, and the child remained in his physical custody for a 12 month period during which he had no legal rights regarding the child.
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Florida is one of only a minority states with laws that allow rape victims to avoid potentially complicated and difficult child custody battles with their attackers in cases where the rape results in the birth of a child. However, that number could rise substantially if Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has her way. The Florida Democrat led a bipartisan group that proposed the Rape Survivors Child Custody Act, which would use the lure of federal grant dollars to incentivize states to pass laws allowing rape victims to obtain sole custody over the children born as a result of their rapes, CBS Miami reports.

The bill, sponsored by Wasserman Schultz and Tom Marino, a Pennsylvania Republican, would make states eligible for federal grant funds flowing from two programs established under the Violence Against Women Act, but would limit that eligibility to those states with laws that permit rape victims to go to court to prevent potential custody battles with their rapists.

A thinkprogress.org report stated that estimates place the number of rape pregnancies at approximately 32,000 annually, with more than 10,000 of those victims electing to raise their children. At a press conference related to the bill, Shauna Prewitt, a rape victims’ rights advocate, explained that rapists can use a pregnancy or child as leverage against the victim’s reporting or pursing her attacker by threatening to pursue joint custody of the child if the woman participates in a criminal prosecution of the rape.
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Child custody matters are not only a serious matter of concern for parents but also to the state of Florida. Florida has a legal and moral obligation to ensure its minor citizens are safe. Child custody matters are best handled by legal professionals but may be faced by parents who have had reports filed against them or by parents who, during divorce proceedings, are not found fit for custody.Violating child custody orders may lead to severe civil and criminal penalties in Florida. On Sunday June 28, a missing child alert was called off for a mother who kidnapped her two daughters who were the subject of a child services investigation.

The department attempted to seize custody of the daughters, aged 7 and 15, after the court issued a dependency shelter order having found them at risk in their mother’s custody. Upon visiting the home, they discovered that the family had disappeared. After a two week search, an anonymous tip led investigators to North Carolina where the mother had kidnapped and transported the children.

Broward county is seeing an unfortunate increase in the number of children removed from homes due to allegations of abuse or neglect. The total number removed by the Broward Sheriff’s office has increased from just over 1,100 children last year to an astonishing 1,525 children in 2013 (up through June 30).

The CEO of the private firm contracted to oversee foster care in the county, ChildNet, identified the spike as being quite significant but cannot point to a clear cause. Some contributory evidence that will be further investigated is the increase in hotline calls reporting abuse, a new administration staff at the Sheriff’s Office, and recent heavily publicized stories of child deaths by the hands of parents previously investigated by child services.

According to the Florida Department of Children and Families, 12 children have died in 2013 due to neglect or abuse in the homes of parents having a history with the department.

The most recent death was a two year old in Homestead. His father is now being charged with second-degree murder. The Department’s records list a long history of Project SOS services having been offered to the father. Project SOS was a social services initiative through the police department that attempted to address homes suffering from abuse and neglect.

In most cases, child services are not eager to remove children from the homes of their parents unless it is clearly unsafe, and will instead try to solve more of the root causes of the abuse or neglect before taking further steps.
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