According to Florida law, the court cannot impose a prospective-based timesharing plan that determines the child’s best interest at some point in the future:
Appellant argues that the court engaged in a prohibited prospective-based analysis when it made its timesharing plan. She relies on Arthur v. Arthur, 54 So.3d 454 (Fla. 2010), and J.P. v. D.P., 196 So.3d 1274 (Fla. 1st DCA 2016), for the proposition that a court is prohibited from determining what the best interests of a child will be in the future. In Arthur, the supreme court addressed whether a court could determine if a future relocation would be in a child's best interests. 54 So.3d at 458–59. The court concluded that a petition for relocation must be determined based on the present best interests of the child, because “a trial court is not equipped with a ‘crystal ball’ that enables it to prophetically determine” whether any changes would occur in the parties' lives in the interim. Id. at 459; see also Horn v. Horn, 225 So.3d 292, 292 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017) (reversing a determination that future relocation would be in the child's best interests).
In J.P., this Court disapproved the use of a prospective-based analysis, where the trial court found that it was in the first-grade child's best interest to be with the father during the school year, but then ruled that the child should move over 300 miles away five years later to live with the mother. 196 So.3d at 1275–78. This Court reversed for several reasons, including the reason that under Arthur, the trial court lacked the ability to determine whether it would be in the child's best interest to relocate five years in the future. Id. at 1277.
Here, in ruling that it was in the best interest of the child for the parties to continue to rotate weekly timesharing until the child entered kindergarten, when it would be in the child's best interest to begin majority timesharing with Appellee, the court engaged in the type of prospective-based analysis prohibited under Arthur and J.P. On remand, the trial court must delete the portion of its order addressing timesharing and custody matters related to future events.
See: Preudhomme v. Preudhomme, 245 So. 3d 989
Related (From this blog and our main website):
- How does time-sharing work in Florida?
- Does a child's living preference justify custody change?
- Child Custody in Florida
- Advocating for Your Child’s Best Interest
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