Custody/Time-Sharing

What to Do When Your Florida Judge Demonstrates She’s Biased Against You or Your Attorney

Published on: September 15, 2020 | by Sandy T. Fox

A lot of times, people who have an unsatisfying experience in court – especially family court – say they lost because the judge “had it in“ for them. Often this is the bitter complaint of someone who didn’t have a strong case or perhaps did have an adequate case but neglected to proceed without an experienced South Florida family law attorney.

Judges are not perfect, though, and sometimes, that appearance of bias is something more than just a figment of the imagination of an unsuccessful litigant. When a genuine issue of judicial bias occurs, this is another time when it pays to have a skilled attorney on your side so that he/she can aid you in handling it the right way.

E.M. was one of those litigants. In January 2020, E.M. and her infant child moved from Key West to Pennsylvania after the child’s father allegedly threatened to punch E.M. The mother filed a custody action in Pennsylvania and the father opened a custody case in Florida. The mother’s Florida attorney also filed a motion seeking to get the Florida custody action dismissed. The judge in Key West denied that motion.

If Your Florida Parenting Plan Places Your Child With You More Than 20% of the Time, You May Owe a Reduced Amount of Child Support

Published on: August 20, 2020 | by Sandy T. Fox

When you are in court on a paternity case, two of the main legal things that you’ll likely be concerned with are timesharing and child support. One of the key things to keep in mind is that these two elements should be interconnected with one another; which is to say that, if you are the parent paying child support but you also have the child for a significant amount of time, then the law says that latter fact should entitle you to pay the child’s other parent a smaller amount of child support each month. To make sure the child support you’ve been ordered to pay is fair, based on the totality of your circumstances, be sure you have representation from a skilled South Florida family law attorney.

How does that reduction process work? A recent case from Palm Beach County offers a good example. K.W. was a father living in North Carolina, and R.B., the mother, lived in West Palm Beach. After the mother filed a paternity petition, the court set up a parenting plan. The plan called for one schedule in even-numbered years and a different schedule in odd-numbered years. This type of plan is not uncommon, as it allows each parent to, for example, have the child for 1/2 of the summers and also 1/2 of Christmases.

This child spent 84 overnights with the father in even-numbered years, but fewer than 73 in odd-numbered years. This was because the plan dictated that the father was to have the child for summer break and winter break in even-numbered years, but not in odd-numbered years. As a percentage, that meant the child spent 77% of the time with the mother, and 23% with the father in even-numbered years. In odd-numbered years, the child spent less than 20% of the year with the father.

My Ex Wants My Psychiatric Treatment and Therapy Records as Part of a Florida Custody Case. Can He Do That?

Published on: June 26, 2020 | by Sandy T. Fox

When a marital relationship breaks down, that breakdown can cause some spouses to respond in a hyper-adversarial way, especially if there are children involved. They may try to lay hands on all kinds of privileged information, such as your past medical history and treatments. Often, this evidence is irrelevant and inadmissible, but you still need to know how to go through the correct legal steps to avoid having to divulge this very private and sensitive information. The right South Florida family law attorney can be instrumental in keeping your private medical information private.

S.R. was a mom caught in that kind of circumstance. After she filed for divorce, her husband, T.R., sought to force 11 medical providers, each of whom allegedly had provided medical, psychological or psychiatric care to S.R at some point, to divulge their records of any such treatment. The husband asked for a wide range of disclosures, including “notes, prescriptions, treatment records, consultation reports, lab reports, blood work reports, office notes by staff of the facility and any electronic records maintained during the course of treatment.”

In addition, the husband also asked the court to order S.R. to disclose all the records she possessed pertaining to “medical and/or psychological and/or psychiatric treatment or counseling” she’d undergone in the previous five years.

Many LGBT+ Parents Used to Take Extra Steps Before Marriage Equality to Protect Their Parental Rights in Florida. Do They Still Need To? (Hint: Potentially Yes.)

Published on: June 19, 2020 | by Sandy T. Fox

When it comes to planning, nothing is more important than doing the planning necessary to protect your family. By retaining the services of a skilled South Florida family law attorney, you can be sure you have the right “safety net” to protect your most priceless treasure: your relationship with your children.

No one wants to think about planning for a potential breakup of their new marriage or newly expanded family, but that’s when you should begin planning to give yourself the “safety net” your family needs. If you’re a gay or lesbian parent whose children are the biological offspring of your spouse/partner but have no biological link to you, it is especially important that you do the proper planning to protect your relationship with your children.

It may be easy to think that, when the U.S. Supreme Court made its marriage equality ruling in the Obergefell v. Hodges case five years ago, all of the unique risks that LGBT+ parents face went away, but that’s simply not true, and a recent case from the Orlando area just further highlighted that fact.

How to Work Through the Processes of Getting a Divorce and a Parenting Plan in Florida When One Parent Has an Issue with Alcohol Abuse

Published on: June 5, 2020 | by Sandy T. Fox

Alcohol abuse is a problem that affects millions of families across the U.S. A branch of the federal Department of Health and Human Services did a study that revealed that in excess of 10% of children in this country “live with a parent with alcohol problems.” When a parent with alcohol problems goes through a divorce, that problem may make working out a parenting plan more complex. Whether you or your ex-spouse is the parent is the one with drinking issues, it is important to recognize that there are certain things you can do within your parenting plan to address the problems, but there are also limits on your options. As you work through these difficult issues, it is invaluable to have a knowledgeable South Florida family law attorney to give you the thoughtful legal advice and effective advocacy your family needs as you set up your parenting plan.

A family from Broward County who recently went before the Florida courts is an example of the many facets of these cases. The mother filed for divorce after nine years of marriage, citing the father’s drinking. The mother asked the judge to order a parenting plan that awarded her majority timesharing along with ultimate decision-making authority, and that limited the father to supervised visits. The father argued for unsupervised visits and shared decision-making.

The judge ultimately awarded the father unsupervised visits, but made them conditional on his refraining from drinking. To make sure the father was abstaining, the plan called for the father to undergo blood-alcohol content (BAC) testing at the beginning and end of each visit. The judge also gave the mother the right to demand, at her discretion, ”periodic and immediate BAC tests,” even when the father didn’t have the children. The order further demanded that the father pay 100% of the costs associated with all of the BAC testing.

When Your Ex-Spouse Is (and Is Not) Entitled to a Court-Ordered Modification of Timesharing Based Upon Her Move Out of or Into Florida

Published on: May 7, 2020 | by Sandy T. Fox

Certainly, the best way to deal with issues like unexpected problems with timesharing schedules is often for the parents to work together collaboratively to find a solution that best meets their children’s needs. That, however, may not always be possible. So, you may wonder, what happens if I have agreed to modify the parenting plan in the past but this time I don’t want to? Am I required to agree again? The precise answer to that question may lie in your divorce judgment and parenting plan, or may lie in other specific facts from your case, so you should be sure to consult with an experienced South Florida family law attorney about your legal rights and obligations.

As one recent case revealed, you may not be legally required to accommodate your ex-spouse. C.B. and L.W., the ex-spouses in that case, were the parents of two children. The children lived with the father outside Gainesville. The mother, on the other hand, moved several times. The parenting plan included in the divorce judgment acknowledged that the mother lived in Texas at the time of the divorce (2012) and that the mother would have timesharing “at times and places agreed upon with the father.”

At first, that meant that the parents had a “long-distance-friendly” timesharing schedule to accommodate the mother’s home being far from the children. In 2014, the mother had moved to Florida, so the parent moved to a “one-week-on-one-week-off” schedule. By 2017, the mother lived in New Jersey with her new husband, so the parents returned to the “long-distance-friendly” schedule.

Sandy T. Fox, P.A. Helps a Florida Mom Protect Her Constitutional Rights… and Her Timesharing with Her Kids

Published on: April 28, 2020 | by Sandy T. Fox

Having a judge rule against you after a timesharing modification hearing in which you weren’t given a fair chance to argue your side can make you feel upset, frustrated and maybe hopeless. When that happens, don’t just give up, but don’t simply dash off to file an appeal on your own, either. A skilled South Florida family law attorney may help you spot additional flaws in your hearing or your judge’s orders that you can use effectively to achieve success.

For example, one Miami-Dade County mom, who retained this firm for her case, was able to use due process errors to get her timesharing back. S.T., the mother, was divorced with two twin daughters. The parents’ modified parenting plan called for each parent to share parental responsibility and receive equal timesharing.

Early in 2020, the mother canceled one daughter’s dental surgery due to “a lack of compliance with essential preoperative instructions.” It’s useful to know that the mother was a practicing physician, so she, in all likelihood, came into this dental surgery with considerably more knowledge of medicine and preoperative medical procedures than just your “average” mom. Based on this canceled surgery, the father filed an “urgent motion” asking the court to cut off all of the mother’s timesharing.

Florida Appeals Court Stays Trial Court Order, Restoring Custody to Mother Who Works with COVID-19 Patients

Published on: April 15, 2020 | by Sandy T. Fox

Every parent feels a natural urge to protect their young children. That is especially true during times of enhanced danger, such as the current pandemic. This has led to a recent spate of court cases where one parent is a medical professional or first responder with enhanced risks of contact with the novel coronavirus, and the other parent is someone who thinks it best that the child not have contact with the health care provider or first responder until the current state of emergency passes. To preserve their relationship with their child, a parent who is a health care provider or first responder should consult a South Florida child custody attorney who can provide them with tenacious advocacy. Our law firm recently won an important victory in a case of this type.

We represented Dr. Theresa Greene, a South Florida woman who found her timesharing cut off by a judge in Miami-Dade County. Dr. Greene is an emergency room physician who, along with her ex-husband, shared a 50-50 timesharing split of their four-year-old daughter. According to NBC 6, she underwent a COVID-19 test last week, and the test result came back negative. Dr. Greene also wears proper protective equipment when working with patients. Nevertheless, the father desired to cut off the daughter’s visits with Dr. Greene while the pandemic continued.

The father went to court and obtained an emergency order temporarily suspending all visits between Dr. Greene and the daughter. The judge’s order stated that a temporary cessation of visits between Dr. Greene and the daughter was necessary in “order to protect the best interests of the minor child, including but not limited to the minor child’s safety and welfare.” The order made it clear that the change was not the fault of Dr. Greene but was “solely related to the outbreak of COVID-19.” Dr. Greene decided to appeal this outcome, and we represented her in the appeal.

Courts in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties Issue Orders to Provide Greater Clarity About Timesharing During This Pandemic Emergency

Published on: April 14, 2020 | by Sandy T. Fox

Recently, this blog took a look at the challenges associated with maintaining a court-ordered timesharing schedule during this time of COVID-19 risks and governmental shelter-in-place orders. You should follow your timesharing order when you can. When that’s impossible, you should work together collaboratively with your child’s other parent to forge a solution. If you have questions about whether your preferred (but off-schedule) solution for dealing with timesharing in this pandemic could get you in trouble with the court later on, be sure you consult with an experienced South Florida family law attorney before taking any unilateral action that is inconsistent with your timesharing order.

The Miami Herald took a look at this pandemic and its impacts on these sorts of families. The best technique for dealing with any sudden and unexpected disruption to your family’s court-ordered timesharing schedule is, of course, working together as parents to reach a solution that meets the best interests of your child. As an example, one mom from outside Florida, who worked as a doctor, agreed with her ex-husband that the couple’s daughter should remain with him until the danger passed because the mother was at too great risk of exposure. Additionally, a Pennsylvania dad, whose job required him to fix HVAC systems in grocery stores on a daily basis, concluded (in tandem with his ex-wife) that his job carried too much risk and that the couple’s 20-month-old son should temporarily stay full-time with the mother.

On the flip side, though, the Herald article cited an example of a potentially inappropriate response: a Virginia mom who, shortly before she was supposed to hand off her 10-year-old son to his father, unilaterally decided that the boy should stay with her until the current shelter-in-place order expired. (Currently, Virginia is under such an order until at least June 10.) “She basically used this to indefinitely halt my custody with my son,” the father said in the article.

Shared Parental Responsibility and Timesharing in Florida in this Time of COVID-19 Pandemic

Published on: March 27, 2020 | by Sandy T. Fox

The current pandemic caused by COVID-19 (a/k/a novel coronavirus) has upset almost everyone’s routines. Miami, Miami Beach and many others in South Florida were, as of March 25, under a “shelter in place” or “safer at home” order. Businesses are closed, churches are closed, schools are closed, and many parents may be unable to attend work, as well. If you are a divorced parent with children of that marriage, one question that may be at the forefront of your mind is… how do the current circumstances affect my timesharing schedule? You may have concerns about doing an exchange due to infection risks or because of the current governmental orders in place, but you may also have concerns about deviating from the court-ordered schedule for fear of facing a contempt of court charge later. For answers to you pressing questions about timesharing, be sure that you’re getting advice from a knowledgeable South Florida family law attorney.

An article recently published by Business Insider focused on this. The answer to this unprecedented question, as is true for so many legal matters, is… it depends. If, for example, you have primary responsibility for your children and the children’s other parent is infected with this virus, then the legal system is not going to require you to give that parent timesharing while she/he’s infected. This may be made even simpler because, if she/he’s infected, she/he probably will insist that you keep the kids until her/his period of contagiousness (and risk to the children) passes. On the other hand, if your children’s other parent isn’t infected, but her/his current partner’s coworker’s spouse is, that probably isn’t enough basis for refusing to facilitate timesharing.

One key thing to know is that there is no law that is, as lawyers call it, exactly “on point.” There is no Florida Statute or court case that says what you should do about timesharing during a global viral pandemic. However, one thing that the courts have stressed, time and again, is the importance of parents working together collaboratively in the best interests of their children.