USA – FLORIDA Law and Practice Contributed by: Elisha D. Roy, Sasser, Cestero & Roy
ment. See McKinnon v Staats, 899 So. 2d 357, 361 (Fla. 1st DCA 2005). Parental alienation is not a crime in Florida, however if the court finds evidence of parental alienation, it may result in reduced timesharing. In Florida, children are able to give testimony in family law cases, but it is disfavoured and unusual. If a party wants a child to testify, they must seek permissions pursuant to Rule 12.407 Florida Family Law Rules of Procedure to bring them to court or even just to have them deposed. Generally, courts do not want to put children in the position to testify “against” a parent or in a position to believe they have a say or choice in the result of a court case, and perhaps more importantly, do not want to put a child in a posi - tion of “picking” a parent. As such, child testi - mony is generally very rare and limited to fact- based issues that usually surround behaviours or incidents a child has witnessed. The court generally will do an in-camera examination of a child outside of the presence of the parents and their counsel to avoid the child needing to testify in the presence of their parents. Florida also has a fairly strict relocation restric - tion with a statute dedicated to if and when same will be granted. Florida Statute 61.13001 provides very specific terms that a parent seek - ing to move greater than 50 miles from where they lived at the time of Final Judgment must fol - low. Generally speaking, unless the other parent already lives outside that area OR is not involved in the child’s life, relocations are rarely granted. However, effective 1 July 2023, if a parent was living greater than 50 miles from the other parent at the entry of a Final Judgment and they move within the 50-mile radius, that is a substantial change in circumstances to warrant a modifica - tion of timesharing. So, if a parent was living out of state and moves closer to the child, they have
the ability to modify their timesharing schedule for more time with the child. 3.4 ADR In Florida, different from many other jurisdictions, all aspects of the dissolution process, namely parenting, equitable distribution, alimony, child support and any other matters to resolve for the family, come before one judge and are typically all decided at the same time. While sometimes cases may be bifurcated, it is unusual for the financial issues to be bifurcated from the child- related issues as they all work off each other. What is distributed to each party must be known to determine incomes for the need and ability to pay the component of alimony. The alimo - ny amount and timesharing schedule must be known to determine child support. To encourage resolution of issues without court involvement, mediation is required in most cases before ever appearing in front of a judge. Media - tion is a process, generally speaking, where each party has their own attorney and a mediating professional (either a lawyer or someone certi - fied by the Supreme Court) serves as a conduit between the parties to seek amicable resolution of their issues. If that is possible, a marital settle - ment agreement and parenting plan are usually signed by the parties at the conclusion of media - tion and, other than a very brief final hearing for the court to enter a final judgment, the litigation is concluded. Sometimes more than one media - tion is necessary to resolve a matter, but media - tion and amicable resolution is generally quite successful in Florida. As mentioned above, arbitration is not permitted in Florida for child-related cases. The parties can agree to use a private judge to resolve child- related issues.
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