HANNAH MOORE, F/K/A HANNAH ZAVIS, FORMER WIFE, APPELLANT,
v.
JEROME MCINTOSH, FORMER HUSBAND, APPELLEE
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The Florida First District Court of Appeal reversed a trial court's modification of a child custody arrangement, holding that the parties' relocation within the same school district did not constitute a substantial change of circumstances warranting modification of custody.
The trial court erred as a matter of law by modifying custody based solely on relocation within the same school district, as relocation alone does not constitute a substantial change of circumstances warranting custody modification, particularly where the parties' agreement expressly contemplates relocation.
[1] Relocation itself does not constitute a substantial change of circumstances warranting modification of custody.
[2] A court errs as a matter of law by modifying a custody arrangement based solely on a relocation that does not demonstrably harm the child's best interests or violate a pr…
Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“The trial court erred as a matter of law by modifying the parties' custody arrangement after finding that the parties' relocation to different cities in Okaloosa County, which resulted in each of them living twenty miles from their child's school in Oka-loosa County, constituted a substantial change of circumstances.”
Statement of the legal error that forms the basis for reversal.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceHannah Moore and Jerome McIntosh were former spouses with a child. Their Marital Settlement Agreement anticipated they would reside in close proximity…
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The trial court erred as a matter of law by modifying the parties’ custody arrangement after finding that the parties’ relocation to different cities in Okaloosa County, which resulted in each of them living twenty miles from their child’s school in Oka-loosa County, constituted a substantial change of circumstances.
Courts have repeatedly found that relocation does not itself constitute a substantial change of circumstances warranting modification of custody. See Ragle v. Ragle, 82 So.3d 109 (Fla. 1st DCA 2011) (moving to a new home 28 miles from the father’s previous home characterized as a “minor relocation”); Ogilvie v. Ogilvie, 954 So.2d 698 (Fla. 1st DCA 2007) (relocation from New York to Florida); Sotomayor v. Sotomayor, 891 So.2d 559 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004) (relocation from New York to Florida, when visitation agreement contemplated that the parents would live in the same *986city); Zugda v. Gomez, 553 So.2d 1295 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989) (relocation from Florida to Michigan).
When the parties’ settlement or visitation agreement expressly prohibits a move, thus establishing that the parties had previously litigated the issue, the party who seeks to relocate must show a substantial change in circumstances to justify the relocation. Mize v. Mize, 621 So.2d 417, 420 (Fla.1993) (visitation order provided that “[b]oth parties are expressly forbidden to move [the child] from the State of Florida without the express permission of this Court”). In contrast, in the case at bar, the Marital Settlement Agreement incorporated into the Final Judgment of Dissolution provides:
It is further anticipated that the parties shall continue to reside in close proximity to one another, i.e., in the same school district. If either party chooses to relocate outside the school district, then the relocating party shall give the other party at least ninety days written notice of same. This will allow enough time to negotiate a stipulated resolution of related issues or the time to attend mediation or obtain judicial relief.
Although this expresses a hope that the parties would remain in close proximity to each other, the possibility of relocation is expressly contemplated. Moreover, both parents are still in the same Okaloosa County School District.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
PADOVANO, ROWE, and OSTERHAUS, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Bryan v. Wheels, 295 So. 3d 889 (Fla. 1st DCA 2020)…Florida. But Florida law doesn’t consider such a move—by itself and without any showing of how that move impedes the present timesharing plan—to necessarily constitute a substantial and material change in circumstances. See, e.g., Moore v. McIntosh, 128 So. 3d 985, 985 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014) (recognizing that “relocation does not itself constitute a substantial change of circumstances warranting modification of custody”); Hutchinson, 287 So. 3d at 697 (ex-wife’s move to another home in the same school district n…
Authorities Cited
- Mize v. Mize, 621 So. 2d 417 (Fla. 1993)
- Ogilvie v. Ogilvie, 954 So. 2d 698 (Fla. 1st DCA 2007)
- Ragle v. Ragle, 82 So. 3d 109 (Fla. 1st DCA 2011)
- Mendez v. State, 553 So. 2d 1295 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989)
- Minetta Sotomayor v. Sotomayor, 891 So. 2d 559 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004)