Posted by Nydia Streets of Streets Law in Florida Child Custody
When a domestic violence injunction is entered requiring one parent to stay away from the other parent, how does this affect a Florida parenting plan? For example, there may be a need for the parties to arrange timesharing exchanges in-person which may violate the stay away provisions of an injunction. This was an issue in the case Wilson v. Martin, 4D2024-3155 (Fla. 4th DCA November 12, 2025).
The mother in this child custody case was granted a permanent domestic violence injunction against the father requiring him to stay 500 feet away from her, including her place of employment. Separately, the father filed a petition to determine paternity and establish a parenting plan. The mother filed a counter petition for relocation, and the parties eventually entered an agreed parenting plan. At a hearing, the court adopted the parenting plan, but added provisions to the final judgment which required the father to stay 100 feet away from the mother, allowed the father to pick up the children from school where the mother worked, and included a provision “that approval [of the mother’s relocation] might be subject to reversal in the future dependent upon Mother’s noncompliance with the time-sharing agreement.” This provision stated:
[I]f the Mother willfully and repeatedly interrupts the Father’s timesharing, i.e., failure to exchange at the designated location, significant late drop offs (more than one hour), unilaterally reschedule the exchange dates/time, or deny telephonic visits, for foreseeable and/or avoidable reasons, the Mother and children will be required to relocate to Palm Beach County, FL and the parties will exercise a 50/50 timesharing schedule. If the Mother cannot, or does not wish to, relocate back to Palm Beach County, FL, then the children shall relocate to live primarily with the Father in Palm Beach County and the parents’ timesharing shall be swapped.
The mother appealed.
Regarding the provision that made approval of the mother’s relocation dependent upon her compliance with the timesharing agreement, the appellate court reversed, holding it “violates Florida law because it imposes an automatic, prospective, and punitive modification based solely on contingent, speculative events. See Natali v. Natali, 313 So. 3d 958, 959 (Fla. 2d DCA 2021). As the only triggering condition is the possibility of Mother’s future noncompliance, the condition is not ‘reasonably and objectively certain to occur at an identifiable time in the future,’ thus violating Arthur. See Natali, 313 So. 3d at 960 (‘[W]e reverse the portion of the parenting plan that prospectively allows the [f]ather to automatically graduate to unsupervised timesharing upon the satisfaction of predetermined conditions.’).’ Accordingly, we reverse and remand for the trial court to strike the portion of the final judgment that prospectively mandates Mother and the children to automatically relocate upon Mother’s possible noncompliance with the time-sharing plan.”
Turning to the other provisions, the appellate court found these were a violation of the mother’s due process rights where the father did not request modification of the domestic violence injunction, and these provisions effectively modified the stay away provisions. The court concluded “In fact, Mother explicitly requested the final judgment of injunction protections stay in place. Thus, the trial court did not have authority to modify the injunction. Flemming v. Flemming, 742 So. 2d 843, 844 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999). We therefore reverse and remand this portion of the trial court’s order to the extent it is inconsistent with the injunction previously entered.”
Nothing in this article can be taken as legal advice. For specific advice about your case, schedule your case review with a Miami family law attorney.