Articles Posted in Custody/Time-Sharing

A woman’s efforts to maintain a relationship with her daughter after she and her wife separated led an Orange County court to issue an order of protection for the daughter to stop the mother from stalking her. The Fifith District Court of Appeal threw out that injunction, though, ruling that the mother’s infrequent and non-threatening efforts to contact the daughter could not amount to stalking as defined by the Florida Statutes. The case highlights the importance of having substantial evidence specifically targeted to the law’s definition in order to prove stalking, as well as the often difficult position a non-biological parent in a same-sex couple faces when it comes to maintaining a relationship with her child after the marriage ends.

The parent accused of stalking was D.L., who had been in a relationship with C.P. for five years when C.P. became pregnant and had a daughter in the fall of 2002. Along the way, the couple entered into a civil union in Vermont in the summer of 2002 and married in Massachusetts in 2004. In 2007, the couple separated. D.L. continued to visit with the daughter for seven years until, on September 1, 2014, C.P. informed D.L. that the girl did not want to see her anymore.
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A recent ruling from the 3d District Court of Appeal reversed a trial court ruling that modified a parenting plan to which both parents had agreed in 2012. Our office, representing the mother, persuaded the appeals court that this ruling was improper because it, despite the absence of an “actual, demonstrated emergency,” altered an existing parenting plan without giving both parents the chance to be heard by the court.

The case surrounded the custody and visitation of the son of H.W. (father) and C.W. (mother). The couple divorced in the summer of 2012, when the child was four. Before the divorce was finalized that summer, they agreed to a mediated marital settlement and parenting plan. Two years later, the father returned to court, asking for a modification in that plan.
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A recent 4th District Court of Appeal ruling withdrew the green light a mother previously received to take her child from Broward County and return to Nebraska. Even though the father did not challenge the relocation within the required 20 days, the law still allows courts to refrain from approving relocations if good cause exists.

The case focused on the dispute between A.V. (father) and M.H. (mother), who had a child together in 2008. In 2010, while the child lived with the mother in Nebraska, a court in that state created a parenting plan that gave the mother residential custody, with timesharing to the father, who lived in South Florida. Three years later, the mother and child moved to Florida to be near the father. The child was enrolled in Broward County Schools. Earlier this year, however, the mother sought court permission to return, along with the child, to Nebraska. The father’s lawyer filed a document opposing the move to Nebraska but did so after the 20-day period for responding to the mother’s request had passed.
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Sometimes a parent’s mental illness can present a substantial challenge within the family and, in some cases, may even make contact between parent and child unhealthy for the child. A court that views contact between parent and child as not in the child’s best interest can reduce or eliminate this contact. A court, however, cannot do so without giving that parent the “road map” that is required in order to resume an active relationship with the child. A Lee County trial court’s failure to give a father such directions ultimately resulted in the 2d District Court of Appeal’s reversal of the trial court’s custody decision.

The case involved Larry and Susan Niekamp, who divorced in 2013 after 22 years of marriage. The couple had two children together. During the divorce trial, a psychologist testified that the father had major depression, anxiety, and avoidant personality disorders, and that these conditions had harmed his relationship with his children. The trial court appointed Dr. Jason Sabo to oversee a “therapeutic reunification” between father and children. However, in the subsequent final order granting the divorce, the court gave the mother sole custody, declining to award the father any contact at all with the children. The court ruled that contact between father and children was not in the children’s best interests “for the time being.”
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All aspects of the American legal system, including family law cases, are based on certain basic principles. One of these is due process of law, and one component of due process is that both opposing sides of a case should, with only a few exceptions, have an opportunity to be heard by the court before a ruling is handed down. In family law cases, the need to protect children can create situations in which an ex parte hearing is necessary in the case of an emergency. In one recent Orlando area case, a trial court custody order was overturned by the 5th District Court of Appeal precisely because the parent who obtained the ex parte change in custody never offered proof of an actual emergency.

The dispute centered around the custody of the four children of Safa Suleiman and Basem Yunis. After Suleiman and Yunis divorced in early 2008, the mother became the primary custodial parent, but both parents continued to live in Orange County, where the children also attended school. The mother later remarried and, in the fall of 2014, moved 28 miles west to a home in Polk County. The mother withdrew the children from school in Orange County and enrolled them in Polk County schools.
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As a certain popular television show illustrates, the “modern family” comes in many diverse versions. With more families who are not like the Cleavers of Leave it to Beaver fame, there are more situations when a person prominently involved in the care of a child may not have a biological relationship to that child. A recent case from North Florida brought this scenario front and center, as the 1st District Court of Appeal issued a ruling highlighting the legal rule that says, when a natural parent and a non-parent are locked in a custody dispute, the courts must look beyond just the “best interests of the child.”

The recent case involved a couple from the greater Jacksonville area, Lisa Corona and David Harris. When the couple split up in November 2012, both of the two children who lived with them went with Harris. The couple eventually went to court to address timesharing and child support issues. The trial court gave Harris the majority of timesharing, with Corona receiving the children a fraction of the time.
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Family law cases can arise from a variety of origins. Unfortunately, one of these bases for filing, especially in contempt matters, is vindictiveness against one’s “ex.” A 2d District Court of Appeal decision recently upheld a Sarasota trial court’s refusal to hold a mother in contempt. Even though the father proved the mother’s violation of the couple’s timesharing plan, the trial court was free not to hold the mother in contempt, which it did in order to discourage more “vindictive and vexatious” actions between these parents. This case is very instructive regarding what options judges have in contempt cases and in dealing with spouses or parents who use the court system to “get back” at their former partners.

The case centered on the family of Steven Brooks and Kimberlee Brooks, who divorced in 2011 after 17 years of marriage. The couple had three children who resided predominantly with their mother. The father received every other weekend. The couple’s timesharing plan required each parent to provide the other with 30 days advance notice and a detailed itinerary in any cases of trips that spanned outside Florida.
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Until just a few short decades ago, grandparents had no legal right to visit with their grandchildren. Today, many states have laws governing grandparents’ rights to visitation. While Florida law contains several strong protections with regard to the right of a parent (or parents) to raise their children as they deem best, even these strong protections do not give a parent a right to evade a valid out-of-state court’s order awarding visitation time to grandparents. Specifically, the 5th District Court of Appeal ruled in a recent Central Florida case that Florida’s right to privacy and policy of parental autonomy did not nullify a valid order of grandparent visitation from a Colorado court.

The case involved the minor children of Ruth Ledoux-Nottingham. The mother and father divorced in Colorado in 2010. A year later, the father died and shortly after his death, the mother and children moved to Florida. Before the mother and children left Colorado, however, the children’s paternal grandparents, William and Jennifer Downs, filed a court petition requesting visitation.
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