Articles Posted in Contempt

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“Self help” is a phrase often used in legal cases involving landlords and tenants. It generally refers to a landlord who decides to throw out a tenant on his own, without going through the proper legal procedures required for an eviction. Serious negative consequences can befall a landlord who engages in self help. While the phrase “self help” doesn’t exist in Florida family law cases, a similar truth exists. If you think your ex-spouse has violated the terms of your marital settlement agreement, and you decide to respond by taking matters into your own hands and acting on your own without going through the proper legal channels, it can create significant problems for you. It is a much better plan, instead, to retain an experienced attorney to help you protect your interests.

One common situation in which this type of problem crops up, and was at issue again in a very recent Fourth District Court of Appeal case that originated in Palm Beach County, relates to the marital residence. Many marital settlement agreements may give the exclusive use and possession of the home to one spouse but require that the spouses share the responsibility for paying the mortgage on the home. These agreements may impose certain restrictions on what the spouse who takes the home can and cannot do. For example, an agreement might give the home to the wife but prohibit any unrelated males from living in the home while the wife has sole possession.

So let’s say a couple has an agreement like the one described above, but the wife moves her boyfriend into the house. What can the husband do? Can he simply stop paying his half of the mortgage? No, he generally cannot. Furthermore, if the home is the residence of not just the ex-wife but also the couple’s children, the consequences facing the husband if he doesn’t pay can be especially serious. That’s because, in the scenario outlined above, that husband’s payment of 50% of the mortgage is considered to be a type of spousal support and child support. Not paying the mortgage can subject the husband to contempt of court penalties, potentially up to and including jail, the same as any other parent who is not paying their child support.

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An ex-wife secured an important victory in the Fourth District Court of Appeal, with that court ruling that she could pursue the ex-husband’s insurance assets and homestead property if she could establish that the ex-husband engaged in fraud. The ruling was a significant one in that it rejected the notion that “homestead property and insurance policies are always exempt from the contempt powers of the court regardless of fraud.”

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In a decision that may, hopefully, bring a degree of closure to one family, prosecutors in South Florida decided to drop criminal charges that were pending against a mother who had famously violated court orders related to the custody of her young son, the Palm Beach Post reported. The case made national news due to the issue at the center of the parents’ dispute (the child’s circumcision), but ultimately provides a reminder of the strong enforceability of parenting agreements, even if one parent has a profound change-of-heart later.

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When you become involved in a family law case, it is important that you follow the orders issued by the judge. However, it is also important to understand that, if you do not comply, there are certain limits imposed by the law regarding the punishments that the judge can hand out. These limits are the reason that the Third District Court of Appeal threw out an order jailing a man recently. The man, represented by Sandy T. Fox, P.A. Law Offices, could not permissibly be jailed because the notice regarding his most recent hearing, which he attended, did not state that he was potentially facing criminal contempt penalties.

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When you go through a divorce in Florida, you may be ordered to make payments to your ex-spouse for various different reasons. While the preferred outcome is to make all payments in full and on a timely basis, it is nevertheless important to understand the difference in possible punishments for failing to pay different kinds of obligations. In one recent case in North Florida, the First District Court of Appeal threw out a finding of contempt against an ex-husband, ruling that the payment he failed to make on time was neither child support nor alimony, so he was not subject to the trial court’s contempt powers.

In this case, a couple from the Jacksonville area, S.S. (husband) and A.S. (wife), divorced, and the trial court ordered the husband to pay the wife $343 per month in child support and $200 per month from his military pension, starting on Dec. 1, 2014. On Dec. 4, the husband wrote the wife a $343 check but also expressed his intention not to pay the remaining $200. Although the husband eventually did pay the additional $200 on Dec. 22, the wife had already filed a request with the court to find the husband in contempt. The wife argued to the trial judge that she deemed the $343 check to be the $200 sum her husband owed her plus $143 of the $343 of the child support obligation. The trial judge approved of the wife’s “election” to construe the $343 sum in the fashion that she did, and the judge held the husband in contempt for failing to pay his full child support obligation on a timely basis.

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In any case involving the divorce of two parents, one of the most important issues the parents will have to resolve will pertain to the religious upbringing of the child. Hopefully, the parents will have similar views or backgrounds regarding religion or alternatively will be able to work cooperatively in the best interest of their child to put a plan into place regarding the religious training of the child. Unfortunately, that does not always happen, as a recent case involving a Jewish family from Palm Beach County showed. As the Fourth District Court of Appeal‘s ruling demonstrated, courts will generally give a parent significant latitude in making these decisions as long as the decisions he or she makes are not proven to be harmful to the child.

The couple in this case, W.S. (father) and E.S. (mother), were the parents of two children and divorced in 2011. The parents reached a marital settlement agreement that gave both of them shared parental responsibility. All major decisions about the children, including religious upbringing, were to be made collectively by the parents whenever that was possible. Problems emerged three years later when, according to the father, the mother began, with no input from the father, immersing the children in Orthodox Judaism, including enrollment in an Orthodox after-school program and introduction of Orthodox teachings and customs at home. The children had, according to the father, been raised only under Reform Judaism prior to that time.

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A man who had fallen hundreds of thousands of dollars behind on alimony to his ex-wife was potentially facing a six-month jail sentence for civil contempt before successfully appealing. The 2d District Court of Appeal threw out the punishment in the contempt order because, by imposing a punishment of incarceration in a prospective fashion, the order violated the husband’s Due Process right to have a hearing on whether or not he had the present ability to pay the amount necessary to purge himself of contempt.

The divorcing couple, E.B. (husband) and C.J. (wife), had been married for nearly three decades. They arrived at a marital settlement agreement that the trial court incorporated into the couple’s divorce decree. The husband agreed to pay the wife $125,000 per year in alimony and maintain a $1 million life insurance policy naming the wife as the beneficiary. The husband eventually fell behind on his alimony and his premium payments on the insurance policy.

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It may sound surprising, but there are some instances when a party to a family law case in Florida may lose his right to have an appeal of his case even considered. That was the case recently for one Palm Beach County husband, when the 4th District Court of Appeal ordered a dismissal of his appeal of a contempt finding unless the husband achieved “substantial compliance” with the trial court’s support orders within 30 days.

The couple, Michel Whissell and Sheronne Whisell, sought a divorce in Palm Beach County. As part of that case, the trial court ordered the husband to make temporary support payments to the wife. The husband, however, did not make these support payments. On multiple occasions, the wife initiated contempt proceedings. Eventually, the husband racked up multiple contempt findings and a support arrearage in excess of $100,000.
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The protracted court case involving the medical care of a 4-year-old Palm Beach County boy took another turn recently, when the child’s mother refused to appear in court as ordered, leading Circuit Judge Jeffrey Gillen to issue a warrant for her arrest, the Sun-Sentinel reported. The case centers around the decision to perform a circumcision on the boy, which the father supports and the mother opposes. Counsel for the mother has argued that she is acting to protect her child, but the Florida courts have consistently upheld the father’s right to make the decision regarding the circumcision, as the mother voluntary relinquished this decision-making right as part of parenting plan agreement signed by the mother in 2011.

D. N. and H. H. welcomed a baby boy on Oct. 31, 2010. The parents later signed an agreed parenting order that stated that the father would handle all matters related to completing the child’s circumcision, including scheduling the appointment, transporting the child and paying for the procedure. The mother agreed to sign all necessary forms to permit the procedure to take place.
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Divorces are almost always difficult, but divorces that occur to couples with teenage children can be especially challenging. While a parent cannot control what his or her children feel or think regarding the other parent, he or she can help foster a healthy relationship by refraining from actively doing things to impede the children’s relationship with the other parent. One South Florida mother’s decision to engage in such counterproductive, hindering behavior ultimately earned her a judgment of contempt, which the 4th District Court of Appeal recently upheld.

When M. (husband) and L. (wife) divorced in 2011, they had three children together, some of whom were well into their teenage years. The couple’s divorce judgment called for shared parenting responsibility and established a timesharing schedule that placed the children primarily with their mother.
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