Posted by Nydia Streets of Streets Law in Florida Child Custody

Make-up timesharing can be awarded to a parent who successfully proves that the other parent wrongfully withheld time-sharing. This is authorized by the Florida Statutes in addition to other remedies. This was an issue in the case Eadie v. Gillis, 5D22-2732 (Fla. 5th DCA June 16, 2023).

In this post-judgment case, the father filed a motion for contempt against the mother alleging she failed to abide by the parenting plan and time-sharing. The court awarded the father 13 make-up time-sharing days, and the mother appealed, arguing in part that the relief granted was beyond the scope of what the father requested.

The appellate court disagreed, first noting that the father’s motion alleged the mother denied him time-sharing “several times, most recently from January 11, 2022[,] to present,” and that the motion requested “compensatory timesharing for all time [Mother] has interfered with or denied him in contravention of the Final Judgment.” If this were not enough, the appellate court also noted there was testimony at the hearing on the motion for contempt from father that he was seeking make-up time-sharing for the period January 11 through January 24, and no objection was raised by the mother.

The court concluded “Here, Mother had ample opportunity to challenge Father’s request for compensatory timesharing. Indeed, she did so by testifying that H.G.’s illness made the scheduled timesharing impractical. There is also no basis for concluding that Mother would have presented additional evidence if Father’s motion had more clearly defined the relief he was seeking. The hearing transcript shows that Mother was fully prepared to dispute Father’s claim. That she was ultimately unsuccessful was not the result of being blindsided by the remedy that Father sought.”

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