C.N. v. I.G.C.
| Decision Date | 29 April 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. SC20-505,SC20-505 |
| Citation | 316 So.3d 287 |
| Parties | C.N., Petitioner, v. I.G.C., Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Ana María Cristina Pérez Soto, Miami, Florida, Eric C. Tung, Los Angeles, California, and C. Kevin Marshall, Jones Day, Washington, District of Columbia; and Alexandra Drobnick of Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project, Washington, District of Columbia, for Petitioner
Wade P. Luther of The Law Office of Wade P. Luther, P.A., Orlando, Florida, for Respondent
The issue in this certified conflict case is whether a final judgment that modifies a preexisting parenting plan must give a parent "concrete steps" to restore lost time-sharing and return to the premodification status quo. We hold that there is no such requirement.
A "parenting plan" is statutorily defined as "a document created to govern the relationship between the parents relating to decisions that must be made regarding the minor child." § 61.046(14), Fla. Stat. (2020). "In creating the plan, all circumstances between the parents, including their historic relationship, domestic violence, and other factors must be taken into consideration." Id .
A court's authority to "approve, grant, or modify a parenting plan" is conferred by section 61.13(2)(a), Florida Statutes (2020). Section 61.13(2)(b) sets out minimum required contents for all parenting plans, including "time-sharing schedule arrangements that specify the time that the minor child will spend with each parent."
Chapter 61, Florida Statutes (2020), mandates that "the best interest of the child shall be the primary consideration" in crafting a parenting plan. § 61.13(3), Fla. Stat. Accordingly, while a court may approve a parenting plan developed and agreed to by the parents, the court retains the discretion not to approve such a plan and instead to develop its own plan. § 61.046(14)(a), Fla. Stat.
Section 61.13(3) gives a nonexhaustive set of factors that a court must consider in discerning the child's best interests. A catch-all provision allows the court to consider "[a]ny other factor that is relevant to the determination of a specific parenting plan, including the time-sharing schedule." § 61.13(3)(t), Fla Stat. Ultimately, the "[d]etermination of the best interests of the child shall be made by evaluating all of the factors affecting the welfare and interests of the particular minor child and the circumstances of that family." § 61.13(3), Fla. Stat.
A court has the authority to modify a previously ordered parenting plan. Id . But a modification is not permitted "without a showing of a substantial, material, and unanticipated change in circumstances and a determination that the modification is in the best interests of the child." Id .
The parties in this case, who were never married to each other, are the parents of a minor child born in 2012. In 2014, they entered into a paternity agreement and parenting plan, and a court incorporated the plan in a final judgment.1 Under that plan, the mother had primary residential custody and the majority of timesharing. The plan gave the mother approximately 57% of overnights and the father 43%.
In 2016 and early 2017, the mother began to accuse the father of physically harming the child. The father disputed the mother's allegations, acrimony ensued, and eventually the parents took each other to court. Relevant here, the father filed a petition to modify the parties’ original parenting plan.
The court went on to hold a two-day trial in August 2018. Informed by medical and expert testimony and the results of a state agency investigation, the court concluded that the mother's child abuse allegations against the father were false. The court also concluded that the mother was suffering from mental health issues and that "her unsupported and unfounded fears regarding the Father and the child's daycare caused her to act in a manner detrimental to the minor child and rendered her unable to effectively co-parent and support the child's relationship with the Father."
The court ultimately made the statutorily required findings and entered a final judgment modifying the parties’ parenting plan. Specifically, the court entered a new time-sharing schedule that gave the father two-thirds of overnights and the mother one-third. The court also ordered the mother to begin "intensive mental health therapy." The court observed that "[n]o definitive time period was projected by the experts but credible and convincing evidence supports that successful therapy will likely take a significant time and perhaps years."
The mother appealed to the Fifth District Court of Appeal. The court of appeal took up two claims: (1) that the lower court's findings were insufficient to support a modification; and (2) that the order was "legally flawed" because it "lacks any ‘concrete steps’ or benchmarks that Mother could work toward to regain her lost timesharing, does not specify ‘what proof’ the court would need from Mother, and does not say when Mother may petition the court to reestablish her timesharing rights." C.N. v. I.G.C. , 291 So. 3d 204, 207 (Fla. 5th DCA 2020). The Fifth District rejected both claims and affirmed the lower court's judgment. Id . at 207-08.
Relevant here, the Fifth District held that "the trial court's order is not rendered legally insufficient for failing to provide Mother with specific steps to regain timesharing." Id . at 208. In so holding, the district court certified conflict with other district court cases that "stand for the proposition that final judgments modifying timesharing must include the specific steps necessary to reestablish timesharing." Id . at 207 ().2
The mother petitioned for our review, and we accepted jurisdiction.
We agree with the Fifth District that a final judgment modifying a preexisting parenting plan is not legally deficient simply for failing to give specific steps to restore lost timesharing. Having said that, we note that the Fifth District went further and held that section 61.13(3), Florida Statutes, does not authorize trial courts to include such steps in a final judgment modifying a parenting plan.3 Our decision today does not address the correctness of this latter holding.
The mother maintains that a court commits reversible error if its final judgment modifying timesharing does not "provide concrete steps to allow a parent to restore her lost timesharing rights, particularly when a parent is ordered to undergo therapy." We disagree.
Our first observation is that the mother's position finds no support in the text of chapter 61, which, as we have explained, governs parenting plans. It is undisputed that chapter 61 does not expressly impose a concrete steps requirement. And we do not agree with the mother's argument that certain statutory provisions fairly imply such a requirement.
Looking for textual support, the mother notes that chapter 61 makes the "best interests of the child" a broad and flexible concept and that trial courts retain continuing jurisdiction to enforce timesharing plans. Pet'r’s Br. 9. (citing §§ 61.13(5), 61.515, Fla. Stat.). But read most generously to the mother's position, these provisions would at most support the argument that a trial court has discretion to build concrete steps into a final judgment modifying a parenting plan. The provisions do not implicitly require the court to provide concrete steps.
Indeed, the mother's core argument in this case is not about the statutory text itself, but about supposed background principles underlying the text. The mother urges that chapter 61 must be understood in light of the common law. And she says that "[t]he longstanding consensus of the courts of appeal is consistent with the statute in requiring that a modification order include concrete steps for regaining time, at least where it mandates therapy or some other affirmative act." The mother suggests that the Legislature has acquiesced in and assumed the validity of this "consensus" by amending chapter 61 without repudiating the district courts’ common law rule.
The mother is right that the common law can, and sometimes must, inform the proper understanding of a statutory text. See Gonzales v. City of Belle Glade , 287 So. 2d 669, 670 (Fla. 1973) (). Nonetheless, we are unpersuaded by the mother's arguments in favor of a concrete steps requirement here.
The supposed common law rule invoked by the mother appears to have originated in the decision of the Third District Court of Appeal in Hunter v. Hunter , 540 So. 2d 235 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989). That case involved a trial court order that temporarily terminated a parent's visitation rights. Id . at 236. The district court faulted the order for being unclear about when the parent could petition for restoration of those rights and about the contours of any therapy requirement. Id . at 238. As a remedy, the district court remanded the order "for clarification of the conditions under which [the parent] may regain visitation." Id .
In the ensuing decades, some district court decisions have built on Hunter and used it to justify requiring "concrete steps" even in orders that finally settled the parties’ visitation rights. See e.g. Munoz v. Munoz , 210 So. 3d 227 (Fla. 2d DCA 2017) ; Tzynder v. Edelsburg , 184 So. 3d 583 (Fla. 3d DCA 2016) ; Witt-Bahls v. Bahls , 193 So. 3d 35 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016). But this expansion of Hunter appears to have occurred without evident consideration of the difference between temporary restrictions and finally ordered timesharing schedules, and without any analysis of the relationship between the common law and chapter 61. As best we can tell, none of the cases expanding Hunter reconcile a concrete steps requirement for final modifications...
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