FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

STATE OF FLORIDA

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No. 1D2022-3620

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HANNA KILCREASE,

Appellant,

v.

BLAKE RYAN BROWN,

Appellee.

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On appeal from the Circuit Court for Leon County.

Tiffany M. Baker-Carper, Judge.

March 6, 2024

TANENBAUM, J.

The parties engaged in paternity litigation in Oklahoma. That 

litigation produced, among other things, out-of-state court orders 

on time-sharing and child support. The Oklahoma court also gave 

the mother (the appellant in this action) permission to relocate 

with the child to Florida. In her verified petition to register these 

orders with the circuit court in Leon County, the mother 

acknowledged that the Oklahoma court that rendered those orders 

has “continuing jurisdiction.” Still, she sought the Florida circuit 

court’s enforcement of the father’s child-support obligation under 

the Oklahoma court’s order. The father responded with his own 

motion for enforcement—of the timesharing plan put in place by 

the same Oklahoma court.
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There was much back-and-forth in the Florida circuit court 

over whether the timesharing plan was temporary or permanent, 

which, according to the parties, would affect what facts needed to 

be proved to support modification of the plan. Meanwhile, the 

Oklahoma court was still issuing one or more orders of its own 

regarding the timesharing plan. The Florida circuit court 

ultimately granted the mother’s motion to enforce the childsupport order and denied the father’s motion for enforcement 

regarding the timesharing. She appeals; he does not.

Even though the mother obtained all the relief that she sought 

in her motion, she expresses concern in her brief over one 

paragraph in the order granting that motion: “The Court 

Minutes/Notes filed in the District Court of Payne County, State 

of Oklahoma . . . is found to be a temporary order, subject to 

modification without [the] need for proving a substantial, material, 

and unanticipated change.” This legal determination had no 

relation to the relief granted to the mother, and she should rest 

assured that the statement is a legal nullity.

This is so because there is no indication in the record that the 

Florida circuit court comported with the requirements of section 

61.519, Florida Statutes, for conducting “simultaneous 

proceedings” on child-custody determinations—which includes

resolution of timesharing issues. Except in emergencies, that 

statute prohibits a court of this state from exercising jurisdiction 

in a proceeding to modify a child-custody order “if, at the time of 

the commencement of the proceeding, a proceeding concerning the 

custody of the child had been commenced in a court of another 

state having jurisdiction substantially in conformity with this 

part.” § 61.519(1), Fla. Stat. There are two exceptions to this 

prohibition: when “the proceeding has been terminated” and when 

the proceeding “is stayed by the court of the other state because a 

court of this state is a more convenient forum under s. 61.520.” Id.; 

cf. § 61.516, Fla. Stat. (prohibiting modification of “a child custody 

determination made by a court of another state” except under some 

limited circumstances, including when the “court of the other state 

determines it no longer has exclusive, continuing jurisdiction 

under s. 61.515 or that a court of this state would be a more 

convenient forum under s. 61.520”). Neither exception appears to 

apply in the proceeding in the circuit court below.
3

Moreover, again except for in emergencies, the statute 

requires

a court of this state, before hearing a child custody 

proceeding, [to] examine the court documents and other 

information supplied by the parties pursuant to s. 61.522. 

If the court determines that a child custody proceeding 

was previously commenced in a court in another state 

having jurisdiction substantially in accordance with this 

part, the court of this state shall stay its proceeding and 

communicate with the court of the other state. If the court 

of the state having jurisdiction substantially in 

accordance with this part does not determine that the 

court of this state is a more appropriate forum, the court 

of this state shall dismiss the proceeding.

§ 61.519(2), Fla. Stat. A record must be made of the communication 

between the two courts under this provision. See § 61.511(4), Fla. 

Stat. Despite the mother’s disclosure in the verified information 

she provided under section 61.522, Florida Statutes, that the 

Oklahoma court had “continuing jurisdiction” regarding the child’s 

custody, there is no record of communication between the two 

courts and no record that the Oklahoma court determined the 

Florida circuit court was the “more appropriate forum” for the 

timesharing dispute.

Regardless of whether the paragraph of concern in the circuit 

court’s order was simply irrelevant or, worse, unauthorized as a 

modification of the Oklahoma court’s timesharing plan, it has no 

legal effect to the detriment of the mother. Because the mother was

awarded complete relief on her motion to enforce, and the father’s 

motion was denied in its entirety, there is no relief for her to claim 

in this appeal, which then must be dismissed. The supreme court 

explained it this way:

When a litigant succeeds in obtaining all [s]he asks in the 

trial court having jurisdiction of the cause, [s]he no longer 

has a grievance to be corrected by an appeal to a 

reviewing court, whose chief duties are to correct abuses 

in the trial court, whereby the rights of a litigant were 

prejudiced and [s]he was thereby deprived of h[er] just 

dues under the law. When [s]he has no such grievance, 
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[s]he is not entitled by appeal to have the appellate court 

approve the judgment in h[er] favor.

Credit Indus. Co. v. Remark Chem. Co., 67 So. 2d 540, 541 (Fla. 

1953); see also Witt v. Baars, 18 So. 330, 330 (Fla. 1895) (dismissing 

appeal where “no relief whatever having been granted against her, 

or any liability adjudged against her or her estate”); Peterson v. 

State ex rel. Harvey, 28 So. 2d 868, 870 (Fla. 1947) (“It appears to 

be well settled, however, that a party to a cause may not appeal 

from a judgment which [s]he has sought and caused to be entered, 

unless the judgment has been so entered that the appellant has 

sustained some injury by it or is one not authorized by law and can 

in no way be enforced by legal process.”).

DISMISSED.

BILBREY and WINOKUR, JJ., concur.

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Not final until disposition of any timely and 

authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 

9.331.

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Ashley D. Hall, Fournier Law, PLLC, Tallahassee, for Appellant.

Eric D. Schab, Max Factor Law, P.A., Tallahassee, for Appellee.