Winton v. Saffer, 3D14–1122.
| Decision Date | 11 February 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 3D14–1122.,3D14–1122. |
| Citation | 158 So.3d 703 |
| Parties | Patrick WINTON, Appellant, v. Candice SAFFER, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Chantale L. Suttle, Coral Gables, and Holly A. Aliprandi, Sunrise, for appellant.
Hoffman, Larin & Agnetti, and John B. Agnetti, North Miami Beach, and Armand Murach, for appellee.
Before SALTER, EMAS and FERNANDEZ, JJ.
Patrick Winton appeals a final order finding him in contempt for failing to pay family support arrearages of $173,371.00, setting a purge amount of $38,800.00, and directing him to show cause why he should not be incarcerated if he failed to pay the purge amount on or before April 30, 2014. The order was entered following earlier proceedings in which jurisdiction over the parties' 2010 California dissolution of marriage action and support orders were recognized in the circuit court in Miami with the consent of the California court, and in which the Miami court subsequently granted the appellee/former wife's petition to relocate with the parties' children to Brazil.1 The trial court conducted evidentiary hearings on the issues of non-payment and contempt before entering the order under review.
Although we find substantial, competent evidence to support the court's findings that the former husband failed to make support payments as required despite an apparent ability to do so, the record does not disclose the calculations and evidence establishing the commencement of the arrearages, the total unpaid balance, and the computation of the purge amount. As one example, the former wife's August 2013 motion for contempt and sanctions alleges that the former husband failed to pay $4,200.00 per month since July 2012 (the date of entry of the California judgment requiring such payments), paying “sporadically or not at all.” The maximum arrearage for the 22 months from that date through the date of the order under review would be $92,400.00,2 an amount considerably different than the $173,371.00 awarded in the order (and also different than the $151,616.00 verbally claimed by the former wife's counsel during the evidentiary hearings), and that $92,400.00 computation is without crediting any “sporadic” payments. A spreadsheet or written breakdown of the computations was not admitted into evidence and is not before us. The former husband testified that if he owed any amount it could not exceed $89,000.00.
The amount awarded thus exceeds the amount calculable on the record before us and...
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Children's Home Soc'y of Fla. v. K.W.
...It did not do so. See Dep't of Children & Families v. R.H., 819 So. 2d 858, 862 (Fla. 5th DCA 2002) ; see also Winton v. Saffer, 158 So. 3d 703, 704 (Fla. 3d DCA 2015) ; Creative Choice Homes, II, Ltd. v. Keystone Guard Servs., Inc., 137 So. 3d 1144, 1148 (Fla. 3d DCA 2014). As such, the lo......