Martindale-Hubbell
The National Advocates
The National Advocates
National Board of Trial Advocacy
The Florida Bar
Best Lawyers
Client Distinction Award
The National Advocates

Published on: | by

A recent child custody battle represents the potential hurdles that can sometimes arise when trial courts attempt creative compromises. The 4th District Court of Appeal recently issued a ruling throwing out a trial court’s modified timesharing plan because the plan was something neither parent had proposed and neither side had any notice was a possible outcome.

A couple, K. and O., lived in Palm Beach County during their marriage and had one child together. After they split, the husband moved to the Florida Keys for work-related reasons. Initially, the child spent three days a week with one parent and four with the other. This timesharing plan had the benefit of giving the parents an approximately 50-50 split in timesharing, but it also presented a problem in that it required the child to travel 400 miles (round-trip) every week back and forth between Lake Worth and Bahia Honda.
Continue reading ›

Published on: | by

A woman who took her child and fled an allegedly abusive husband was unable to successfully move her divorce and child custody case to a court in her new home in South Florida. The 1st District Court of Appeal, while openly expressing sympathy for the woman’s difficult position, threw out an order transferring the case from Tallahassee to Miami-Dade County because, when the original divorce petition was filed, the couple had only lived in Tallahassee, making that location the only permissible place where the case could be heard.

The case regarded the difficult and allegedly violent breakup of the marriage of KM (husband) and TM (wife). The husband filed for divorce in September 2013 in Tallahassee, where the couple was living with their child. Shortly thereafter, a dispute reportedly erupted between the couple, and the husband allegedly punched the wife several times. The wife left Tallahassee and went to stay with her mother in Miami. The wife obtained a domestic violence injunction against the husband from a court in Miami-Dade County.
Continue reading ›

Published on: | by

Parties in divorce cases will, in many instances, submit proposed final orders to the trial judge. A recent 5th District Court of Appeal ruling serves as a reminder that, although these submissions are permissible and often helpful to trial judges, courts should be hesitant to adopt them in their entirety when the opposing side has no opportunity to comment or object. Additionally, parties are not entitled to forms of relief they didn’t ask for in their petitions, even if they raised the issues in their pre-trial documents.

The recent case involved CC’s filing for divorce from her husband, DC. The wife’s petition asked the court to dissolve the marriage, create a time sharing schedule for the couple’s child, award child support, and distribute the couple’s assets and liabilities.
Continue reading ›

Published on: | by

A woman who was the victim of a sex crime as a minor was allowed to seek a protective injunction when the man who committed the crimes was released from prison, even though the terms of the man’s probation forbade contact with the victim, according to a recent 4th District Court of Appeal ruling. Regardless of the prohibitions contained in the man’s probation, Florida law gave the victim the right to request the protective injunction and required the trial court to hold a hearing on her request.

In 2003, B. was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 10 years of probation for sexual battery on a person less than age 12. With B.’s release date this year drawing close, his victim, H., went to court to obtain an order of protection against him. The trial court dismissed both of H.’s protective injunction petitions without holding a hearing. The court reasoned that a protective injunction was unnecessary because of the terms of B.’s probation. If B. made contact with H., he would be in violation of his probation and would probably be returned to prison.
Continue reading ›

Published on: | by

In unfortunately too many cases, a child grows up “fatherless” because his or her father fails to assume his parental responsibilities or because the child’s mother does not know who the father is. But what about cases where multiple men have stepped up to claim fatherhood?

This was the issue presented to one Florida appeals court earlier this year when a married woman gave birth to a child conceived as a result of her extramarital affair. Even though everyone involved agreed that the wife’s extramarital partner was the child’s biological father, this ultimately did not matter. In cases where a child is born to a woman who is part of an intact marriage, biological paternity was “legally insignificant” to the determination of legal paternity, according to the 2d District Court of Appeal‘s ruling.
Continue reading ›

Published on: | by

There are many reasons a divorcing spouse might sign off on a marital settlement agreement when one or more terms are less favorable than what that spouse would receive if the agreement followed the Florida Statutes. Whatever the reasons, a person in such a situation should be extremely careful when signing such an agreement because, as long as the language in the document is clear, courts will follow the agreement’s terms, as one recent 2d District Court of Appeal case demonstrates.

The case arose from the divorce of a Florida couple. After mediation, the couple came to terms on a marital settlement agreement. In that document, the husband agreed to pay the wife $4,500 per month in alimony. The alimony paragraph stated that the amount was non-modifiable and payable for the life of the wife.
Continue reading ›

Published on: | by

Child custody court cases involve many elements. One vital aspect is determining what is in the best interest of the child, an issue that many parents might feel capable addressing on their own. However, family law cases are still civil litigation matters, in many cases complete with multiple procedural layers. In one recent case, a trial court’s decision to grant a grandmother’s custody-related motion survived because, according to the 5th District Court of Appeal, the motion complied with the rules of procedure, so the trial court was within proper bounds to hear it and rule on it.

The case involved the custody of a son born to a Florida woman. In 1999, she granted legal temporary custody of the infant boy to the child’s grandmother. More than a decade later, in 2010, the mother was drug-free, remarried, and caring for her younger children with her husband. The mother asked the court to grant her substantial visitation with the child. The grandmother asked that the court require supervision for the visits, and the court agreed.
Continue reading ›

Published on: | by

For many students who go from high school directly to full-time college attendance, continued financial dependence on their parents is an economic reality. Realizing this, many divorcing parents address what happens to child support in the event that a child goes to college. Understanding exactly what your marital settlement agreement says on this issue is extremely important, since even seemingly minor variations in the agreement’s language can yield substantially different results. In one recent 4th District Court of Appeal case, the court terminated a father’s child support for a child who lived on campus at the University of Florida because the couple’s agreement required that the child was “living at home” with the mother, not just maintaining a permanent residence at the mother’s home and residing there during school breaks.

In 2004, couple in this case finalized their divorce. The spouses had reached a marital settlement agreement, which addressed child support. The father agreed to continue paying support on any child until that child’s 21st birthday if the child was attending college and living at home with the mother.
Continue reading ›

Published on: | by

Alimony can serve as an important lifeline, especially for divorcing spouses who subsist on fixed incomes. A recent 5th District Court of Appeal ruling highlights the basic concept of alimony law in Florida, saying that alimony must be large enough to allow the recipient spouse to meet her living expenses without having to spend her assets just to pay her monthly bills. In the 5th DCA’s recent decision, it sent a divorce case back to the trial court after deciding that the alimony imposed on the husband would not be enough to meet the wife’s monthly expenses.

The divorce in question regarded the 12-year marriage of a Florida couple. The couple achieved a partial settlement agreement of their financial affairs through mediation. The agreement called for the husband to refinance the marital residence and give the wife $4,000 from the proceeds of that transaction.

On the matter of alimony, the couple could not agree. The wife put forth evidence to the trial court that she was disabled and unable to work, and that she received $1,189 per month in disability payments as her sole source of income. She also testified that, in order to secure a home comparable to the marital residence, she would have to pay approximately $850 per month. The trial judge ultimately awarded the wife bridge-the-gap alimony of $300 a month for two years. The judge, in arriving at these numbers, expressly factored in the $4,000 the wife would receive from the refinance transaction.
Continue reading ›

by
Posted in: Alimony
Published on:
Updated:

Published on: | by

A recent 4th District Court of Appeal ruling clarified the proper factors for determining if a parent has sufficiently abandoned his child to allow the courts to terminate his parental rights and gave a pair of grandparents’ effort to adopt their grandchild new life. The appeals court’s ruling explained that, in order to terminate a parent’s legal rights to his child, the law requires proof that the parent showed an intent to reject his parental obligations, but it does not necessarily require evidence that the parent willfully disregarded the child’s safety.

S. fathered a child in 2002. In 2010, the child’s mother died. The mother’s parents then went to court seeking to adopt the child. As part of that process, they also asked the court to terminate the father’s parental rights. As part of their termination request, the grandparents argued that the father had abandoned the child, both financially and emotionally.

The trial court held a hearing. At the hearing’s conclusion, the judge ruled that the grandparents had proven that the father indeed had financially and emotionally abandoned his child. Nevertheless, the judge refused to terminate the father’s rights and denied the grandparents’ adoption petition. So, what went wrong? According to the trial court, the law also required the grandparents to prove that the father “willfully disregarded” the child’s safety, and they did not offer evidence on this point.
Continue reading ›