KATHLEEN LYNN HORN, FORMER WIFE, APPELLANT,
v.
MARK GORDON HORN, FORMER HUSBAND, APPELLEE
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The court held that a paragraph in a final judgment allowing relocation without a current best interests determination supported by competent, substantial evidence is erroneous.
The former wife appealed a final judgment concerning child relocation. The judgment included a paragraph allowing the former husband to relocate the c…
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The Appellant/former wife raises five points in this appeal. We find no reversible error with the final judgment other than paragraph N. That paragraph makes findings about the prospective benefit of relocation should the Appellee/former husband relocate with the child, A.H., from San Antonio, Texas, to any other location in the continental United States, including to the paternal grandmother’s residence in Virginia. It also permits relocation by the former husband without approval from the former wife or trial court.
As the Florida Supreme Court held in Arthur v. Arthur, 54 So.3d 454, 459 (Fla. 2010), “a best interests determination in petitions for relocation must be made at the time of the final hearing and must be supported by competent, substantial evidence.” See also Sylvester v. Sylvester, 992 So.2d 296 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008). Since paragraph N of the final judgment would allow the former husband to relocate without meeting the requirements of Section 61.13001, Florida Statutes, and since it finds that relocation is A.H.’s best interest without the need- for then-current, competent, substantial evidence to .support it, it is error.
Accordingly, we affirm all of the final judgment except paragraph N. We reverse with instructions that the trial court vacate paragraph N of the final judgment.
AFFIRMED in part, REVERSED in part with instructions.
ROBERTS, C.J., and WINSOR, J., CONCUR.
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Elisia D. Preudhomme v. Preudhomme, 245 So. 3d 989 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018)…e present best interests of the child, because “a trial court is not equipped with a ‘crystal ball’ that enables it to prophetically determine” whether any changes would occur in the parties’ lives in the interim. Id. at 459; see also Horn v. Horn, 225 So. 3d 292, 292 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017) (reversing a determination that future relocation would be in the child’s best interests). In J.P., this Court disapproved the use of a prospective-based analysis, where the trial court found that it was in the first-grade…
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Horton v. Horton, 257 So. 3d 1197 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018)
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Meggan Elizabeth Miller v. Miller (Fla. 1st DCA 2019)…e law is that the best interest of the child determination cannot be a prospective-based analysis. See, e.g., Arthur v. Arthur, 54 So. 3d ---PAGE 3--- 3 454 (Fla. 2010); Preudhomme v. Preudhomme, 245 So. 3d 989 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018); Horn v. Horn, 225 So. 3d 292 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017). As I stated in Horton, many of the determinations trial judges must make in a family law case are prospective, and trial judges should be permitted to make “reasonable, limited, prospective modifications” when considering the b…
Authorities Cited
- Arthur v. Josette A. Arthur, 54 So. 3d 454 (Fla. 2010)
- Nolan Michael Sylvester v. Sylvester, 992 So. 2d 296 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008)