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A Miami-Dade mother may be in the position of going from receiving child support to paying support. The mother’s attempt to challenge a court order creating this modification failed as the 3d District Court of Appeal ruled that the procedural basis she used for challenging the modification was incorrect, and, as a result, the trial court lacked jurisdiction to hear the mother’s request.

When J.T. (father) and E.T. (mother) divorced in 2002, they reached a mediated settlement agreement as part of that case. The agreement stated that the husband would pay $444 per month in support for the couple’s one child. A decade later, the father went back to court to modify child support. He was approaching retirement, and his retirement would lead to a substantial reduction in his income. A hearing officer looked at both parents’ evidence and decided that, based upon the new income figures, the mother now owed the father a child support obligation in the amount of $384 per month. The trial judge approved the officer’s findings on March 24, 2013.

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A recent case originating in Jacksonville led the 1st District Court of Appeal to throw out part of a trial court’s decision to modify a parenting plan and calculate child support. The evidence in the case did not show that a substantial change in circumstances had taken place to warrant a plan modification, and there was also insufficient evidence to support the manner in which the trial court calculated each parent’s income in arriving at the father’s support obligation amount.

The case centered around the daughter of T.B. (father) and V.B. (mother), a couple who divorced in 2005. In 2011, the father sought to amend the parenting plan. He also filed a motion asking the court to lower his child support obligation.

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A man from Sweden found himself facing a child support case in South Florida, but he ultimately was able to persuade the 4th District Court of Appeal that the Florida courts could not hear the case because Florida lacked personal jurisdiction over him. Simply taking action in the case for the purpose of seeking the matter’s dismissal is not enough to trigger personal jurisdiction. Even when you are trying to persuade the courts that you do not have the required minimum contact with Florida, this does not handcuff you into refraining from taking action in the case, as long as that action is strictly defensive in nature.

The case was a child support action in which the mother, C.L., asked a Broward County court to impose a support obligation on the father, C.G. The court papers were served on the father in Sweden, where he resided. The mother argued that, in accordance with the Hague Convention’s rules regarding overseas service, the court could extend its jurisdiction over the father. The father submitted a limited response, filed (and quickly withdrew) two discovery requests, and also agreed to extend a discovery deadline.

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A husband from the Gainesville area succeeded in appealing a divorce judgment entered by a trial court in Hillsborough County. The 2d District Court of Appeal ruled that the only criterion for determining venue that applied to the couple’s case was the residence of the husband. Since he undisputedly lived in Alachua County, that meant that Alachua County, not Hillsborough County, was the proper venue for the case.

In early 2013, M.V. (wife) desired to end her marriage to J.V. (husband). She filed for divorce in Tampa. The husband lived near Gainesville. He asked the trial court in Tampa to transfer the case to Gainesville, but the court refused and entered an order dissolving the marriage. The husband appealed and won, which nullified the divorce judgment that the court in Tampa had entered. The 2d DCA threw out the divorce on the basis that the trial court in Hillsborough County should have granted the husband’s request to move the case to Alachua County.

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In most cases, the primary sources of financial support that exist for the benefit of children are the incomes of those children’s parents. In some cases, though, there may be additional sources of income, such as state financial assistance programs. In cases when parents receive assistance from the state, that assistance cannot be used as an offset against a parent’s child support obligation. The 5th District Court of Appeal recently threw out a Seminole County court’s order wiping out the $160 per month obligation the husband would have owed under the child support guidelines. Allowing the husband not to pay child support essentially deprived the children of the full benefits that they should have received from both their parents and the state.

The case tracked the family of R.T. (wife) and K.T. (husband), a Central Florida couple who adopted two minor children with special needs during their marriage. In accordance with Florida law, those adoptions entitled the couple to receive a total of $590 per month as part of the state’s Adoption Assistance Program.
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One of the most frustrating things for a parent can be when the other parent does not comply with the parameters for timesharing established by the court. When that happens, the parent who has lost time with the child has certain legal options. It is important to understand what the law can and cannot do for you in these situations, and what you must establish to achieve a favorable outcome. One recent example of this was a case from Volusia County in which the 5th District Court of Appeal threw out a trial court order that modified timesharing in the father’s favor after the mother repeatedly failed to meet her obligations under the original timesharing order.

Originally, T.K. (father) and K.C. (mother) mutually worked out a timesharing arrangement regarding their child as part of a paternity action. However, 10 months later, T.K., a member of the military stationed in southern California, was back in court asking that K.C. be held in contempt. The mother, on three different occasions, improperly blocked the father from exercising his timesharing, according to T.K. The trial court held a short evidentiary hearing and concluded that the mother was in contempt for multiple violations of the parenting plan. The trial court awarded the father his attorney’s fees and court costs, and it also altered the parenting plan. Under the modified plan, each parent had the child 50% of the time, rotating in three-month intervals.
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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 wife fighting to avoid using her alimony to pay a lien imposed by her former divorce lawyer must return to a Broward County trial court to continue litigating the matter. The 4th District Court of Appeal concluded that whether or not the attorney’s lien was enforceable against the wife’s alimony award depended on whether the alimony was needed to pay for the wife’s “daily sustenance or the minimal necessities of life,” or whether it was used to cover less basic expenses.

The case began when M.T. (wife) filed for divorce from her husband, L.T.. The wife sought, among other things, an award of alimony in order to maintain the lifestyle to which she had been accustomed. The wife hired an attorney, but, three months into the relationship, the attorney and the client parted ways. Ultimately, the divorce case proceeded to its conclusion. The trial court’s ruling included an award of alimony to the wife.
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A Florida woman who raised four children together with her same-sex partner for several years lost her bid to obtain court-ordered timesharing with the two biological children of her partner. The 2d District Court of Appeal ruled that, even though the women had raised the children together for years, and they had an informal visitation arrangement for two more years after the relationship ended, the woman had no legal relationship with the children, so the children’s biological mother had a fundamental right to cut off and deny visitation to her former partner. Even though the law has recently changed in Florida regarding same-sex marriage, a marriage between the two women alone may have not saved the woman’s case, since she still would not have been a legal parent to the children. Only adoption would have guaranteed her rights, which was a choice that became available in Florida prior to the women’s separation.

The couple, S.R. and E.P., decided to start a family after several years together. The women purchased anonymous donor sperm, and, using that sperm, each woman became pregnant twice and had two children. The women raised the four children together as one family until their relationship deteriorated and, in the spring of 2011, they separated.
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A South Florida woman’s pursuit of a permanent injunction for protection from domestic violence against her former partner of 13 years was not yet at its conclusion after the 3d District Court of Appeal threw out a trial court’s decision entering the injunction. The woman, at her permanent injunction hearing, brought up incidents of violence that she had not mentioned in her injunction petition. By allowing her to testify to these previously undisclosed incidents, the trial court denied the man his due process rights to receive fair notice of the charges against him. All was not lost for the woman, though, since the appeals court reinstated her temporary injunction for protection and awarded her a new hearing where she could re-introduce the improper evidence as long as she amended her petition first.

O.L. and Y.C. were a couple from 1997 to 2010. Their relationship produced three children. Unfortunately, as happens with some couples, the relationship ended…and ended badly. In September 2010, Y.C. went to court seeking a domestic violence protective injunction. The trial court issued a temporary injunction, which was extended several times until the court convened a final hearing in 2013. At that final hearing, Y.C. alleged several instances of domestic violence carried out by O.L.
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