In many child custody and visitation cases, the parents often receive shared parental responsibility. When they do, there are certain restrictions that exist regarding how decision making must be structured. In one recent case, the Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed a trial court order because the parents had shared…
A pair of errors by a trial court allowed a husband to win his appeal before the Second District Court of Appeal recently. The lower court’s failure to include in its equitable distribution a loan taken out for the purpose of funding the couple’s child’s education was erroneous, as was…
When going through a divorce, some people desire to resolve the case as quickly as possible. Sometimes, though, it may be necessary, in order to obtain a truly fair and just outcome, to ask the court to put off ruling in your case. One recent case from southwestern Florida highlights…
One of the more stressful experiences you can face is the fear that you may be in imminent danger of becoming a victim of domestic violence. Florida law allows courts to issue injunctions of protection against domestic violence to offer a degree of protection to victims. In order to qualify…
When it comes to child support cases, one of the most important issues can be whether or not the law allows the court to impute additional income to the obligor parent for the purposes of calculating his support amount. One of the keys to imputing income is proving that the…
If you watch enough TV courtroom drama shows, you’ve likely seen it at some point. One of the lawyers will attempt to introduce some piece of evidence, and the other attorney will exclaim, “Objection! Hearsay!” While hearsay objections may be more commonly associated with criminal cases, they also take place…
In an alimony case, the law gives trial judges a certain amount of discretion in how they structure an obligor spouse’s alimony payments. Even with this discretion, there are limits. For example, an alimony award should not automatically increase at some future date unless there are specific extenuating circumstances that warrant…
Family law cases, like many varieties of litigation, can sometimes take unexpected turns. One such example was a case recently decided by the Fifth District Court of Appeal. In this case, a mother in a child support case lost her job after the final hearing but before the trial court…
Child support cases, especially when you are facing contempt and possible jail time, are serious matters. There are many ways the courts can find you capable of making your child support payments, but there are other resources the law does not require you to deplete just to meet your support…
When you think about alimony, you probably think about a court order that obliges one ex-spouse to pay the other ex-spouse a sum of money every month for a certain period of time (or permanently). The law also, however, allows the courts to hand out lump-sum awards of alimony. As…