MICHAEL JOSEPH MOORE, APPELLANT,
v.
LAUREN ASHLEY YAHR, APPELLEE
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
The court held that a supervised timesharing order must specify the steps a parent must take to reestablish unsupervised timesharing and that the costs of supervision cannot be solely borne by one parent, as such costs are part of child support.
[1] A court order for supervised timesharing must set forth specific steps a parent must take to reestablish unsupervised timesharing.
[2] A parent's visitation rights may not be conditioned on the payment of their financial obligations.
Previewing 2 of 5 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceThe father appealed a final judgment of paternity ordering supervised timesharing, arguing the order was deficient in four ways. The appellate court a…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Parental Visitation Rights cases and more on FLexlaw
The father appeals from the circuit court’s final judgment of paternity in which the court ordered that the father’s timesharing with his child be supervised. The father argues that the order is deficient in four respects: (1) it fails to set forth specific steps by which the father may establish unsupervised timesharing; (2) it improperly delegates to the supervisor the choice of location for the supervised timesharing; (3) it improperly makes him solely responsible for the costs of supervision; and (4) it is not based upon competent, substantial evidence.
On the second and fourth arguments, we affirm without discussion. On the first and third arguments, we reverse, as discussed below.
*545On the father’s first argument, we recently reversed a similar judgment “insofar as it failed to provide the specific steps required for the wife to reestablish contact with her child beyond supervised timesharing.” See Witt-Bahls v. Bahls, No. 4D14-152, 193 So.3d 35, 37, 2016 WL 1587413, at *1 (Fla. 4th DCA Apr. 20, 2016). We reasoned:
The failure to set forth any specific requirements or standards for the alleviation of timesharing restrictions is error. This applies to both the prevention of timesharing altogether and to restrictions. “Essentially, the court must give the parent the key to reconnecting with his or her children. An order that does not set forth the specific steps a parent must take to reestablish time-sharing, thus depriving the parent of that key, is deficient....” Grigsby v. Grigsby, 39 So.3d 453, 457 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010)....
We do not mean to suggest that the trial court was obligated to set out every minute detail of the steps to reestablish unsupervised timesharing. However, if the trial court determines that anger management therapy or a substance abuse program, for example, would be more appropriate than merely general counseling, it must so specify, along with a timeframe. The requirement is for the [parent] to walk out of the courtroom knowing that if [he or] she satisfactorily accomplishes relatively specific tasks, [he or] she will be able to reestablish unsupervised timesharing. “[Alb-sent such benchmarks being identified by the trial court, the ‘temporary5 nature of the suspension of the [parent’s] time-sharing will become illusory.” Grigsby, 39 So.3d at 457 n. 1.
Witt-Bahls, 192 So.3d at 39, at *3-4 (other internal citations and quotation marks omitted).
Consistent with Witt-Bahls, we reverse the final judgment here and remand for the circuit court to amend the final judgment to provide the father with the specific steps required to establish unsupervised timesharing. As no transcript exists of the hearing which led to the final judgment, another hearing on this issue may be necessary. Cf. id. at -, *4 (‘We believe that modification of the order is possible from the record alone and do not suggest that a new trial is necessary.”).
On the father’s third argument, the mother concedes that “[u]nder Florida law, the [father] is correct that the trial court should normally treat the costs of supervision as part of the child support calculations.” We agree with that statement, which is consistent with our sister court’s holding in Perez v. Fay, 160 So.3d 459 (Fla. 2d DCA 2015):
Also troubling is the portion of the amended supplemental final judgment that requires the Mother to be solely responsible for the costs of her supervised time-sharing, thus tying her visitation with her daughter to her financial status. As this court has stated, a parent’s visitation rights may not be conditioned on the payment of the parent’s financial obligations. Instead, the expenses of visitation are part of the parties’ childrearing expenses that must be addressed as part of the parties’ child support obligations.
Here, the amended supplemental final judgment implicitly conditions the Mother’s time-sharing on her payment of the time-sharing supervisor by making her solely responsible for payment of the time-sharing supervisor’s charges. While the Father contends that the judgment does not directly condition time-sharing on payment, we cannot help but note that the judgment gives the time-sharing supervisor the discre*546tion to set the time-sharing schedule and to: unilaterally suspend it. The reality of these two provisions is that the Mother’s 'time-sharing with her daughter will simply-not occur unless she pays the time-sharing supervisor. Therefore, this portion -of the final judgment must also be reversed.
Id. at 466 (emphasis added; internal citar tions, quotation marks, and brackets omitted).
Consistent with Perez, because the final judgment here implicitly conditions the father’s timesharing on his payment of the timesharing supervisor by ' making him solely responsible for payment of the time.sharing supervisor’s charges, we also must reverse this portion of the final judgment, and remand for the circuit court to amend the final judgment accordingly. Again, as no transcript exists of the hearing which led to the final judgment, - another hearing on this' issue may be necessary. '
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded1with directions.
STEVENSON and LEVINE, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Ryan v. Ryan, 257 So. 3d 1168 (Fla. 3d DCA 2018)…ertion or demonstration of prospective inability to pay those expenses. Two of our sibling district courts have determined that the costs of supervision should be treated as a child support expense and included in those calculations. Moore v. Yahr, 192 So. 3d 544 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016); Perez v. Fay, 160 So. 3d 459 (Fla. 2d DCA 2015). But the Former Wife has not pointed to any authority providing similar treatment for expenses of monitoring and treating substance abuse imposed as a result of a party’s violatio…
-
Alvarez v. Sander Andres Salazar, 338 So. 3d 267 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022)…eeds and the parent has the corresponding ability to pay.” Williams v. Gonzalez, 294 So. 3d 941, 945 (Fla. 4th DCA 2020). “[T]he trial court should normally treat the costs of supervision as part of the child support calculations.” Moore v. Yahr, 192 So. 3d 544, 545 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016). Therefore, the trial court erred when it held that all supervision costs should be offset against retroactive child support payments in the final judgment. See Williams, 294 So. 3d at 945. Here, the trial court should ha…
-
Frye v. Cuomo, 296 So. 3d 939 (Fla. 4th DCA 2020)…me-sharing visit. Moreover, because the final judgment explicitly conditions Former Husband’s time-sharing on BAC testing, it was also error for the trial court to make him solely responsible for the cost of the BAC device. See Moore v. Yahr, 192 So. 3d 544, 545–46 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016) (holding that the costs associated with restrictions on time-sharing are to be part of the child support obligations, and reversing the portion of the final judgment making the father solely responsible for time-sharin…
Previewing 3 of 5 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- Witt-Bahls v. Bahls, 193 So. 3d 35 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016)
- Paola Perez v. Derik FAY, 160 So. 3d 459 (Fla. 2d DCA 2015)
- Shuler v. State, 160 So. 3d 459 (Fla. 2d DCA 2014)
- Grigsby v. Grigsby, 39 So. 3d 453 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010)
- Klier v. Dep't OF Bus. & Prof'l, 39 So. 3d 453 (Fla. 5th DCA 2010)