USA – FLORIDA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Elisha D. Roy and Carolyn D. Ware, Sasser, Cestero & Roy
that a child born during a marriage is the bio - logical child of the married couple. The result of this trifecta is that children born or adopted to a married, same-sex couple should be deemed a child of that union, and that, in the event of dis - solution of the marriage, both parents should be presumed to have equal timesharing. However, with President Donald Trump’s recent scrapping of diversity, equality and inclusion policies, there is a legitimate concern that gay marriage and other rights given to the LGBTQ+ community may now be at risk too. What will this do to chil - dren born to a same-sex couple during an intact marriage if there is legislation or an executive order that gay marriages are deemed invalid? What if gay adoption is also determined to be invalid? What will happen to the permanency of those children adopted into same-sex couples? What will happen if you’ve got a biological moth - er who birthed the children to a same-sex couple but the other mother does not have biological ties to the child? These troubling issues should be at the forefront of practitioners’ minds and protecting the children of these families in the USA as we head into the next few years. Equitable Distribution The major change to equitable distribution in Florida was effective on 1 July 2024 and this statutory change deals with the valuation of businesses in the State. Through the evolution
of case law over the last ten to fifteen years, the concept of actual business valuation in Florida has all but gone by the wayside. A series of appellate opinions essentially made it so that only one of the three methods of valuation – the asset approach – was really appropriate in valu - ing most Florida businesses during a divorce. Essentially, the law morphed the application of all three methods into holding that if any non- compete or non-solicitation clause were to be required for the owner spouse to be out of the business, then no enterprise goodwill could exist, leaving the asset approach as the only valuation method necessary. The new statutory change requires the court to identify whether there is value over and above the presence of the owner spouse to value enterprise goodwill, and makes it clear that a non-solicitation or non- compete cannot create a presumption that there is no enterprise goodwill. In practice, this should boost the value of most types of businesses for divorce purposes, other than those in the per - sonal service sector. This change will truly ben - efit the non-owner spouse. As with all the chang - es, however, it will be interesting to see what the courts do with cases as they are appealed. It was the appellate courts that created the erosion of business valuation in Florida and, arguably, more opinions could come out chipping away at this most recent statutory change.
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