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Some spouses like to joke with their partners by reciting the well-worn humorous phrase, “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is ours.” Florida law allows spouses to have certain assets that belong to that spouse alone. However, the law creates certain triggers that, if they occur, convert a non-marital asset into a marital one. That’s what happened to one Polk County woman, whose $78,000 in cash gifts from her mother were, according to the 2d District Court of Appeal, marital because she commingled that cash in an account that also contained marital funds.

Roberta Dravis’ mother was very generous toward her daughter. Every Christmas and birthday, the mother gave her gifts of cash. Dravis deposited these gifts in an account at CenterState Bank that she and her husband, Dean Dravis, jointly owned. By the time the couple separated, the total sum of the mother’s gifts to her daughter amounted to $78,000.
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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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Earlier this summer, the US Supreme Court ruled on the case of Obergefell v. Hodges. In that decision, the court narrowly ruled that the 14th Amendment recognized a constitutional right to marriage for same-sex couples. As part of this ruling, not only must states issue marriages to same-sex couples seeking to unite in Florida, the state must also legally recognize as valid same-sex marriages and civil unions granted by other states. This requirement that all states recognize all validly issued same-sex marriages provides a degree of clarity when it comes to same-sex divorces, and it resolves the legal limbo that entrapped some couples living in Florida.

These couples included Keiba Lynn Shaw and Mariama Changamire Shaw, who married in Massachusetts in 2010. A year after their wedding, the couple moved to the Tampa Bay area. In the fall of 2013, they separated and began seeking a divorce early in 2014. The divorce was uncontested, with the couple having no children and completing a settlement agreement to divide their assets and debts. Courts uniformly refused to grant them a divorce, however, concluding that a Florida court could not dissolve their marriage because, under the Florida Constitution, the marriage never validly existed in the first place.
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The law regarding alimony contains several nuances. One of these is a statutory rule that says that the amount of evidence a spouse must offer in order to obtain permanent alimony differs based upon how long the couple was married. This rule recently led to the reversal of a Tampa court’s decision to deny a wife permanent alimony, since the 2d District Court of Appeal concluded that the lower court denied the wife’s permanent alimony request based upon the wrong standard of proof.

In Irene and Randy Banks’ case, theirs was a long-term marriage, having wedded before NASA launched the first space shuttle or the University of Miami won its first national football championship. The couple separated in 2011, with the wife filing for divorce shortly before the year’s end. At the time of their divorce, the husband made $90,000 a year and received a military pension that paid him almost $2,300 per month. The wife was unemployed but, in the trial court’s opinion, had a ability to earn $25,000 per year.
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Two of the most important decisions many parents will make regarding their children center around the children’s education and their religious affiliation. Two recent cases, one from the 3d District Court of Appeal and one from the 2d DCA, demonstrate the importance of documenting the entirety of your and your spouse’s agreement regarding your children’s education, and of understanding exactly how tuition payments may affect child support calculations.

If both parents agree that their child (or children) should attend private school for some or all of their education, the marital settlement agreement between the parents should be very clear about what the couple agreed to, since when an agreement is silent on an issue, the courts will construe that to mean that the couple did not resolve that issue.
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The recent economic recession created financial hardships for many, including numerous people who lost their jobs. When you lose your job, you have many things you must deal with. If you owe child support and you’re unemployed, there are certain situations in which your child’s support may be calculated based upon an income you don’t have. In a recent case from Martin County, the 4th District Court of Appeal highlighted the rules for child support obligations in these situations.

The case involved the support of the one child of Miguel Perales and Jennifer Heard, born in 2009. Each parent asked the trial court for a determination of child support in 2010. At that time, the mother was unemployed, having lost her job as a deputy sheriff after she was caught improperly recording conversations with Perales and accessing the driver’s license and vehicle information database for non-work related reasons, namely researching Perales’ girlfriend and attorneys.
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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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Generally, in order to obtain a modification in your timesharing agreement, both parents must be placed on notice that the court’s ruling may bring about a change in the current plan. In some situations, a court may alter the timesharing arrangement without notice if an emergency exists. The 3d District Court of Appeal recently overturned a Miami-Dade County trial court order because the mother did not have proper notice, and the conditions for an emergency change did not exist.

After several years of marriage, Tal Bronstein and Elizabeth Bronstein divorced in 2012. The couple had one minor child. By the time the divorce was finalized, the husband lived in Colorado.
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Divorce can bring out many complicated issues, particularly when it comes to money. On the one hand, a nefarious spouse may try to deplete assets before the case is finalized. On the other hand, spouses continue to have bills and financial obligations that often require dissipating marital assets to pay. Regardless of what a spouse’s true motives may have been, the dissipation of marital assets should only be included in an equitable distribution of assets if the trial court specifically finds that the dissipating spouse engaged in intentional misconduct, the 4th District Court of Appeal recently ruled.

Bonnie Jean Platt filed for a divorce from her husband, Minor J. Platt, Jr. While the case was pending, the wife allegedly took several guns and pieces of jewelry and sold them. After the sales, the court heard evidence regarding the value of the sold items, and it concluded that the guns were worth $6,500 and the jewelry had a value of $6,200. Having made this determination, the trial court then included that $12,700 as an amount that the wife received in calculating the couple’s equitable distribution.
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