Fort Lauderdale Divorce Lawyer Blog

Father’s Failure to Return Daughter to Florida on Time Allows for Alteration of Parenting Plan

Published on: February 18, 2015 | by Sandy T. Fox

Following time-sharing schedules can sometimes be complicated, especially when timesharing involves a child who is old enough to have a desire to assert her own self-control over where she lives. Even when faced with a child who does not want to return to the home of your ex-spouse, it is important to note that failure to follow court-ordered dates for returning a child to Florida from outside the state (or country) can have damaging impacts on your custody rights. In case recently decided by the 5th District Court of Appeal, that court ruled that an emergency order granting custody to a mother was legal even though the trial court never determined that it was in the daughter’s best interest. The court was not required to address the daughter’s best interests because the father engaged in an “improper removal” by failing to bring the daughter back to Florida from the United Kingdom on the date the court had established a month earlier.
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How to Obtain a Custody Modification in Florida

Published on: February 11, 2015 | by Sandy T. Fox

The implementation of a parenting plan hopefully represents the culmination of a collaborative process to create an outcome in the best interests of the children involved. Sometimes, though, circumstances change, and those changes may trigger the need for a modification of the plan. When they do, the Florida Statutes have some specific requirements regarding what must be established in order to modify a custody arrangement, especially if that modification involves stripping one parent of all decision-making authority.

A recent example of this in the 5th District Court of Appeal was the custody dispute between two parents. The couple married in 1993, but after a decade and a half of marriage, the husband filed for divorce. The couple’s 2009 marital settlement agreement called for a fairly common custody arrangement, with the mother getting primary physical custody, the father getting visitation, and the parents agreeing to share “parental responsibility on all aspects of the children’s lives.” The agreement also called for the father to pay child support.
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South Florida Political Consultant Convinces Court 2012 Income Was an Anomaly

Published on: February 4, 2015 | by Sandy T. Fox

In child support matters, there are certain issues that can be murky and complicated to ascertain, such as identifying when a change of circumstances has occurred that is significant enough to warrant a modification of a payor parent’s child support amount. While identifying the payor spouse’s income for purposes of calculating child support might seem like an easier task, this is not always the case, especially when the payor spouse’s income includes irregular but large bonuses. This was the case in a legal battle in the 4th District Court of Appeal between a political consultant and his ex-wife.

The couple divorced in 2009. Several years later, the mother returned to court to ask that it modify the child support order and raise the amount the father owed. The mother argued that the father made nearly $495,000 in 2012 and that this amount should serve as the basis for a calculation of the modified support amount. The trial court agreed with the mother and ordered the modification.
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Father Required to Pay Interest on Arrearage Before Child Support Case Can Be Closed

Published on: January 26, 2015 | by Sandy T. Fox

A couple’s long-running legal battle over child support will run a while longer, as the 3d District Court of Appeal reversed a lower court ruling that would have closed the case. The appeals court instead sent the case back, ruling that the trial court should have heard additional evidence, and issued an award, regarding the interest that accrued on the father’s support arrearage from the time the court issued an order in April 2010 until the husband paid off the pre-interest balance in August 2012.

The issue of child support following the divorce of Nivia and Albert Lascaibar was a long-running dispute, making its way through the courts in South Florida for a period of two decades. By 2010, a magistrate calculated the father’s child support arrearages to be in excess of $82,800. The magistrate also stated that “interest has and shall continue to accrue on any outstanding arrearage.” After the father paid off that $82,800 sum, the trial court declared the case closed.
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Supreme Court Declines to Hear Headline-Grabbing Case Regarding Toddler’s Circumcision

Published on: January 19, 2015 | by Sandy T. Fox

For some, it is about the ethics of performing arguably medically unnecessary surgery on a child. For other, it is about how much “say so” each parent should have in making decisions on behalf of his or her child. For the Florida courts, however, the case surrounding a child’s circumcision boiled down to the existence of a valid parenting agreement and the absence of any changed circumstances that would warrant the courts stepping in to avert that agreement’s execution.

The Palm Beach County parents H.H. and D.N. gave birth to the boy in 2010. The parents never married. Shortly after the child turned one, the parents each signed an agreed parenting plan. Parenting plans are required in cases that involve timesharing, even if the parents are in agreement about the timesharing schedule.
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Lack of Due Process, Improper Burden-Shifting Sends Divorce Case Back to Trial Court

Published on: January 12, 2015 | by Sandy T. Fox

In one recent Florida divorce, a trial court’s failure to give the husband a meaningful opportunity to be heard in the case, as well as the court’s improper shifting of the burden of proof from the wife to the husband regarding whether Scotland law or Florida law should govern the divorce, forced the 5th District Court of Appeal to reverse the trial court and send the case back for a new trial.

Before the former couple married in Scotland, they executed a “Minute of Agreement,” which is the approximate equivalent of a prenuptial agreement. The couple’s agreement stated that, if they divorced, the court deciding the case should use Scottish law.
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Lesbian Couple Fails to Secure Florida Divorce Using Unique Interpretation of Same-Sex Marriage Statute

Published on: January 5, 2015 | by Sandy T. Fox

A Christmas Eve ruling from the Third District Court of Appeal might have appeared to be a cause for cheer among those who support the state’s ban on same-sex marriages, but a careful reading provides a different perspective. The lesbian couple who litigated the matter lost their case largely on procedural grounds, since there were no issues in dispute between them, meaning that there was no “controversy” for the court to resolve.

While the factual background of O. and S.’s same-sex divorce case was not especially unique, the legal component was. Married in Iowa in 2009, the couple moved to Florida some time later. By 2012, the couple opted to go their separate ways, with O. filing for divorce.
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Florida Court Refuses to Hear Family Law Case Best Litigated in New Jersey

Published on: December 30, 2014 | by Sandy T. Fox

A couple’s out-of-state divorce order was the starting point of multistate legal battles spanning more than a decade. The battle between the two former spouses highlights some of the challenges that occur when parties to a divorce move away from the state that originally handled their case. The 4th District Court of Appeal upheld a dismissal of a husband’s Florida legal action related to the divorce because the couple’s previous home state of New Jersey was actually the proper place to bring his claims.

The long-running contest began after a New Jersey court issued an order granting a divorce to a couple, and giving the wife awards for unpaid alimony and child support. The court also ordered that certain pieces of the husband’s property be placed into a trust and gave the wife the authority to sell those assets in the trust. If necessary, the wife had the power to satisfy the child support and alimony debts from the sale of the husband’s trust assets.
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Broward Judge Grants Florida’s First Ever Same-Sex Divorce

Published on: December 17, 2014 | by Sandy T. Fox

A Broward Circuit Judge’s order on December 17 granted to a South Florida art dealer something she sought for more than a year: a divorce. What made the judge’s in-court ruling groundbreaking was that the woman sought a divorce from her lesbian partner, with whom she had entered into a civil union in 2002. The ruling represents the first time a Florida court has issued a divorce to a same-sex couple and comes on the heels of a December 8 ruling, issued in the same case, declaring Florida’s ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional and unenforceable, the Miami Herald reported.

The former couple entered into a civil union in Vermont 12 years ago. In 2010, one partner allegedly became unfaithful and, shortly thereafter, disappeared. In order for the other partner to marry her new partner, she needed to obtain a divorce. In a similar case involving a Tampa couple, the lesbian couple married in Massachusetts but could not get a Massachusetts divorce because neither was a resident there by the time they decided to part ways. In the present case, she could not obtain a Vermont dissolution because Vermont law requires a signed affidavit from her partner, and she no longer knew the partner’s whereabouts.
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Appropriate Alimony Awards and the Length of Your Marriage

Published on: December 10, 2014 | by Sandy T. Fox

When faced with the possibility of awarding alimony, courts have a variety of options. The appropriate option may depend on various factors, including how long you were married. Whether you are the spouse paying alimony or the one receiving alimony, it is very important to understand what the law does (and does not) allow courts to do when it comes to an alimony award. Two Florida appeals court decisions from this year serve as examples of these limitations.

In a very recent decision, Diaz v. Diaz, the 3d District Court of Appeal ruled in favor of a husband’s appeal and overturned a trial court’s ruling with regard to the husband’s payment of alimony. The trial court in that case ordered the husband to pay the wife durational (temporary) alimony each month for 48 months. The flaw with this award was that the couple’s marriage had only lasted for a little more than three years (40 months.) Section 61.08(7) of the Florida Statutes says that durational alimony “may not be modified except under exceptional circumstances and may not exceed the length of the marriage.”
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