NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPI RES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA SECOND DISTRICT

LAURIE P. SLATON, ) ) Appellant, ) ) v. ) Case No. 2D15-5614 ) MICHAEL JAMES EDWARD SLATON, ) ) Appellee. ) ) Opinion filed July 15, 2016.

A ppeal pursuant to Fla. R. App. P. 9.130 from the Circuit Court for Pinellas County; Susan St. John, Judge. Ingrid Anderson, Clearwater, for Appellant. Thomas J. Donnelly, Clearwater, for A ppellee.

VILLANTI, Chief Judge.

Laurie P. Slaton (the Mother) appeals the trial court's nonfin al order that temporarily transferred primary residential custody of her two children to Michael James Edward Slaton (the Father). 1 We affirm the trial court's order to the extent that it gives temporary primary residential custody of the parties' children to the Father. However,

1 We have jurisdiction. See Fla. R. App. P. 9.130(a)(3)(C)(iii)( b).- 2 - because the order does not provi de the Mother with any guidance as to the steps she must take if she wishes to reestablish primary residential cust ody and because the

order does not include a timeshar ing schedule, we must reverse and remand for further proceedings. The parties' marriage was dissolved in 2012 by the courts of t he state of Washington. On the date of the dissolution judgment, the Mothe r was living in Florida and the Father was deployed on active duty in Qatar with the U. S. Air Force. The Washington dissolution judgment gave the Mother primary residen tial custody with the Father having "visitation" by Skype or phone call. Upon the Father's return to the United States, he was transfer red to Louisiana. Once there, he and the Mother reached an agreement concerning timesharing, which allowed the children to spend time with the Father in Louisiana while the Mother remained in Florida. The Mother and Father generall y agreed on where and how to exchange the children, and it appears that they shared t he expenses of those exchanges. In the summer of 2015, the parties planned to have the childr en spend most of June and July with the Father in Louisiana before retur ning to the Mother in Florida in August. However, while the children were with the F ather, the Mother was arrested for aggravated battery with a weapon on her paramour, and the paramour was arrested for battery on the Mother as well. These arrests brou ght to light the fact that there had been prior domestic violence between the Mother and h er paramour, who had lived off and on with the Mother and the children, and that the children had witnessed some of this domestic violence. At that point, the Father refu sed to return the children- 3 - to the Mother, which prompted her to begin proceedings in the F lorida courts to domesticate and enforce the Washington dissolution judgment. T he Father responded with a request for temporary residential custody, which the tri al court granted after an evidentiary hearing. However, the trial court's order did not provide a timesharing schedule for the Mother and the children, and it did not deline ate the actions required of the Mother if she wished to regain primary residential custody. The Mother argues that all of these rulings were err oneous. We agree in part. As to the temporary modification of primary residential custo dy, we readily affirm the trial court's ruling. A trial court may enter an or der temporarily modifying child custody—even without notice to the opposing party—if there is e vidence of a bona fide emergency situation. See, e.g., Smith v. Crider, 932 So. 2d 39 3, 398 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006). Further, a trial court may modify parental responsibili ty and timesharing in the absence of an emergency if there is a "factual basis sufficient to show that conditions have become materially altered since the entry of the previous decree." Wade v. Hirschman, 903 So. 2d 928, 933 (Fla. 2005) (quoting Frazier v. Frazier, 147 So. 464, 467 (Fla. 1933)). Here, the trial court was faced with evidence that the Mother had been arrested and charged with felony domestic violence battery with a weapon on her paramour and evidence of the Mother's request that she be permi tted continued contact with her paramour despite his arrest for battery on her. Furth er, there was evidence that Florida's Department of Children & Families ("DCF") had in itiated an investigation of

the Mother's home based on these domestic violence arrests. In addition, there was evidence that the Mother and her paramour had engaged in prior domestic violence in- 4 - front of the children and that a prior DCF investigation had be en terminated based on the Mother's assurances that she had severed her relationship w ith this same paramour. This evidence was sufficient to support the trial co urt's finding that an emergency situation existed and its conclusion that modificatio n of the Mother's custody of and visitation with the children was necessary, at least unt il such time as the Mother's charges were resolved and the DCF investigation was concluded. In addition, this evidence was sufficient to support the trial court's finding th at this situation constituted an unanticipated, substantial, and material change in circumsta nces. And, taken together, this evidence supports t he conclusion that it was in the children's best interests to change primary residential custody to the Father u ntil such time as the court could be reasonably assured that the Mother would be available to parent the children without domestic violence occurring in the home. Therefore, we affirm the portion of the trial court's ruling that granted the Father's emergency motion to temporarily modify primary residential custody. However, on this same record, we must agree with the Mother th at the trial court erred by unqualifiedly transferring primary residen tial custody to the Father without also specifying the steps necessary for the Mother to r egain residential custody. As this court has repeatedly held, a trial court may not modify primary residential custody based on a parent's behavior without also identifying t he steps that the parent must take to restore the original custody arrangement. See Per ez v. Fay, 160 So. 3d 459, 466 (Fla. 2d DCA 2015); Grigsby v. Grigsby, 39 So. 3d 453, 457 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010). As we stated in both cases,

when the court exercises its discretion to reduce or eliminate time-sharing with a parent's children,- 5 - the court must give the parent the key to reconnecting with his or her children. An order that does not set forth the specific steps a parent must take to reestablish time-sharing, thus depriving the parent of that key, is deficient because it prevents the parent from knowing what is expected and prevents any successor judge from monitoring the parent's progress. We also held that the court had the obligation to identify "concrete steps" in the final judgment that the parent must take to reestablish time-sharing. Perez, 160 So. 3d at 466-67 (quoting Grigsby, 39 So. 3d at 457) (citation omitted). In both cases, we were compelled to reverse and remand for further proceedings because of the trial courts' failures to identify the necessary steps f or the mothers to regain custody and timesharing. See Perez, 160 So. 3d at 467; Grigsby , 39 So. 3d at 457. Here, as in both Perez and Grigsby, the trial court's order wh olly fails to set forth the steps the Mother m ust take to reestablish primary residential custody of the children. While the trial court made various references during the hearing to the Mother's needing counseling to address certain issues, the tria l court did not incorporate any of those references into its order or give the Mother any i nstructions as to what she needed to do to prove to the court that she had addressed them. This omission requires us to reverse and remand for further proceedings. Moreover, the temporary order is also deficient because it doe s not incorporate any timesharing plan whatsoever for the Mother nor does it contain any support for the proposition that zero timesharing for the Mothe r is the appropriate result. As this court has held, "a parent has a constitutionally protec ted ' "inherent right" to a meaningful relationship with his [or her] children.' " Perez, 160 So. 3d at 465 (alteration- 6 - in original) (quoting Schutz v. Schutz, 581 So. 2d 1290, 1293 ( Fla. 1991)). Therefore, "time-sharing privileges should not be denied to either parent as long as the parent conducts himself or herself, whi le in the presence of the child ren, in a manner which will not adversely affect the children." Id. (citing Yandell v. Yan dell, 39 So. 2d 554, 555 (Fla. 1949)). The complete cessation of any and all timesharing is a harsh result that is rarely proper. In fact, the order modifying primary residential custody from the Mother to the Father states that it is incorporating a timesharing plan, but it does not actually include, attach, or incorporate a timesharing schedule of any k ind. Thus, the Mother has been left with no timesharing at all, or, at best, timeshar ing at the sole discretion of the Father through what appears to be an inadvertent omission b y the trial court. Under these circumstances, the omissi on of any timesharing plan const itutes reversible error

which must be corrected on remand. Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further p roceedings.

KHOUZAM and SALARIO, JJ., Concur.