IN RE THE MARRIAGE OF LYNDELL KEVIN KERR, APPELLANT,
v.
DEBRA ANN KERR, APPELLEE
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Florida appellate court reversed denial of overnight visitation to father of two-year-old child, holding that the tender years doctrine has been abolished and fathers must receive equal consideration as mothers in custody and visitation matters.
A trial court errs in denying a father overnight visitation with his young child based solely on the tender years doctrine, which has been abolished by Florida statute requiring equal consideration of both parents regardless of the child's age.
[1] The tender years doctrine, which presumptively favors maternal custody of young children, has been abolished in Florida, and fathers must receive equal consideration as m…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“It is the public policy of this state to assure each minor child frequent and continuing contact with both parents after the parents have separated or dissolved their marriage and to encourage parents to share the rights and responsibilities of child rearing. Upon considering all relevant factors, the father of the child shall be given the same consideration as the mother in determining custody without regard to the age of the child.”
Court's statement of Florida's statutory public policy regarding parental custody and visitation rights.
In a marriage dissolution case, the trial judge denied the father overnight visitation with his two-year-old son, citing the tender years doctrine. Th…
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DAUKSCH, Judge.
This is an appeal from a judgment in a marriage dissolution case. The only point on appeal is the denial of the father’s right to have overnight visitation with his two-year old son. The trial judge ruled “(t)he husband shall not have overnight visitation with the child due to the tender years until further order of this Court.”
We assume the trial judge was applying the “tender years doctrine” which has been effectively abolished in Florida by section 61.13(2)(b)(l), Florida Statutes (1983) which provides:
Custody and Support of Children; Visitation Rights; Power of Court in Making Orders.
... It is the public policy of this state to assure each minor child frequent and continuing contact with both parents after the parents have separated or dissolved their marriage and to encourage parents to share the rights and responsibilities of child rearing. Upon considering all relevant factors, the father of the child shall be given the same consideration as the mother in determining custody without regard to the age of the child.
There was no evidence in the record that the father was unable to care for his child overnight and he was certainly willing to do so. It was error to deny the father and the child their visitation.
The judgment is affirmed in all respects except the denial of the overnight visitation.
AFFIRMED in part; REVERSED in part.
COBB, C.J., and ORFINGER, J., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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DeCAMP v. Darwin Uhle Hein, 541 So. 2d 708 (Fla. 4th DCA 1989)…mining the primary residence of the child irrespective of the age of the child.” (emphasis supplied) This statutory language at first blush appears to abolish the tender years doctrine, as indeed the Fifth District believes it has. See Kerr v. Kerr, 486 So. 2d 708 (Fla. 5th DCA 1986). Yet, this very same section also provides that the equal rights provision only applies “af [*710] ter considering all relevant facts." (emphasis supplied) Relevant facts should obviously include, at least in part, some considera…
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Ketola v. Ketola, 636 So. 2d 850 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994)…would indicate the Legislature’s intent to override the ‘tender years’ doctrine and if successful, might prove to be the most substantial change included in this legislation.” Accordingly, we agree with the Fifth District’s decision in Kerr v. Kerr, 486 So. 2d 708 (Fla. 5th DCA 1986), that subsection 61.13(2)(b)l, Florida Statutes (1983), effectively abolished the “tender years doctrine” in Florida. Accord Barnes v. Frazier, 509 So. 2d 401, 402 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987) (“The trend in current jurisprudence is to tr…
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Kuutti v. Tommi L. Kuutti, 645 So. 2d 80 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994)…arguing that, there, this court recognized the continuing validity of the “tender years” doctrine, a preference for awarding custody to the mother when the child is young. In DeCamp, we rejected the conclusion of the Fifth District, in Kerr v. Kerr, 486 So. 2d 708 (Fla. 5th DCA 1986), that section 61.13(2)(b)l had abolished the tender years doctrine, determining instead that the “equal rights provision” of the statute only applies after considering “all relevant facts,” one of which still must be the tender y…1 / 3
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