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Custody: Can this trial be dismissed, and how?

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sanlex

Junior Member
Florida.
THE ISSUE:
My ex-husband is trying to change custody and visitaion rights. I currently have Sole custody and he was court ordered at the time of the divorce to attend Supervised Visitation. He has now set a trial date to change this to Joint custody and weekend and summer visitation.
THE FACTS:
The Final Judgement was set in Oct. 2003.
- He has yet to attend any Supervised Visitation dates set.
- He is delinquent by thousands of dollars for chid support.
- The divorce was prompted by Domestic Abuse towards me.
THE QUESTION:
Does he have grounds to ammend the Final Judgement considering all the facts?
Can this case be dismissed based on his LACK OF GROUNDS?
What can I do to have this dismissed without having to go to court again?
 


ceara19

Senior Member
Child support and custody/visitation are 2 different things. One is not dependent on the other in most cases.

Where the supervised visits for an indefinate amount of time or was there an actual plan in place to work towards unsupervised visitation? Normally a review hearing is set for a time 3-6 months later to see how things are going.

Generally a person can ASK for a modification at any time, it doesn't mean it will even get past the pre-trial hearings though. Since he did not follow the supervised schedule, it should be easily dismissable, but you still have to go to court to have it dismissed.
 

sanlex

Junior Member
The supervised visits were through a program that would observe his behavior with our son. They were supposed to lead into normal visits if he had attended the program consistently without problems. Again, he never attended the program.
We just went to a Case Management Hearing and they set a trial date for the modification.
Is it too late to have it dismissed? Do I have enough grounds to dismiss the case? What do I need to file? The trial is May 18th.
 

BelizeBreeze

Senior Member
Although Florida does not have the same statue reference as Missouri and other states (requiring the NCP to be current with support before having grounds to file a modification) there is case law in Florida which supports the idea that although the court may find that circumstances exist to make a downward modification, that modifcation will not be granted until such time as the arrearages are paid in full.

ALso, in Florida statutes, a modification cannot be brought based on parenting time or lack thereof when the lack of such is the direct cause of the NCP not exercising awarded parenting time and it can be shown that the CP did not interfer in such.
 

BelizeBreeze

Senior Member
IN OTHER WORDS:

File your answer praying the court to INCREASE the child support order based on the following:

CHAPTER 61 PART I GENERAL PROVISIONS 61.30 Child support guidelines; retroactive child support.-- (11)
(c) A noncustodial parent's failure to regularly exercise court-ordered or agreed visitation not caused by the custodial parent which resulted in the adjustment of the amount of child support pursuant to subparagraph (a)10. or paragraph (b) shall be deemed a substantial change of circumstances for purposes of modifying the child support award. A modification pursuant to this paragraph shall be retroactive to the date the noncustodial parent first failed to regularly exercise court-ordered or agreed visitation.
 

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