FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

STATE OF FLORIDA

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No. 1D2022-1896

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NATALIE MITCHELL,

Appellant,

v.

SEBASTIAN AHMED,

Appellee.

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On appeal from the Circuit Court for Leon County.

Joshua M. Hawkes, Judge.

December 13, 2023

PER CURIAM.

In this appeal, the mother, Natalie Mitchell, seeks review of 

an amended final judgment in which the lower court modified the 

parenting plan for the minor child she shares with the father, 

Sebastian Ahmed. She argues the trial court exceeded its 

jurisdiction in granting relief to the father without a proper 

pleading and the changes the court made to the father’s 

timesharing are not in the child’s best interests. We agree. 

Facts

The mother and the father, who were never married, share a 

minor child born in 2010. In 2012, the circuit court entered a final 

judgment of paternity that included a parenting plan (the 2012 
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plan). The 2012 plan provided for shared parental responsibility

and a 70/30 timesharing schedule wherein the child primarily 

resided with the mother. When the child was with the other 

parent, the parties were directed to make the child available for 

phone contact with the other parent “each week on Sunday, 

Monday and Thursday nights at 6:30 pm.” The 2012 plan required 

the father to pay child support and provide health insurance for 

the child.

The parties lived under the 2012 plan until 2019 when the 

father was arrested for health care fraud. The circuit court 

awarded the mother sole custody and sole parental responsibility

in an emergency order. After the father bonded out jail to pretrial 

house arrest, the parties stipulated to reinstate the father’s 

timesharing under the 2012 plan subject to certain exceptions. In 

March 2020, the father was convicted and sentenced to seventeen 

and a half years in federal prison.1

The Pleadings

Because this case concerns the trial court’s jurisdiction, it is 

important to clarify the relief the parties requested before the final 

hearing. 

In a supplemental petition for modification filed immediately 

after the father’s 2019 arrest, the mother sought, among other 

things, to suspend or restrict the father’s timesharing until the 

child’s best interests could be assessed and determined. 

Several weeks after his conviction, the father filed a motion to 

enforce the phone call schedule in the 2012 plan. His motion 

alleged the mother was deliberately interfering with his access to 

the child. The mother denied the allegations.

In April 2022, the father filed a supplemental petition for 

modification that only sought relief related to child support. His 

1 In 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh 

Circuit affirmed his conviction and sentence. See United States v. 

Ahmed, 73 F.4th 1363 (11th Cir. 2023).
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supplemental petition did not seek any relief related to 

timesharing or communication with the child.

Final Hearing and Amended Final Judgment

The lower court held a hearing on the supplemental petitions 

and motion for enforcement. The mother, the child’s counselor, and 

the child testified consistently that the child did not want to visit 

the father in prison and forced visitation would be emotionally 

difficult for him. The mother wanted sole parental responsibility,

but did not want to terminate the father’s parental rights. She did 

not believe the child should be ordered to visit the father in prison, 

but she was willing to facilitate phone contact. She testified the 

father’s incarceration made it difficult for them to adhere to the 

2012 plan’s phone call schedule because the father was not always 

available.

For the first time at the hearing, the father asked the court:

(1) to order a ten- to fifteen-minute phone call “a few times a week,” 

ideally Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between 6:30 and 8:30

pm; and (2) to order the child to visit him in prison at least four 

times a year. 

The lower court entered a final judgment of modification that 

included a new parenting plan. The mother moved for rehearing, 

arguing the court exceeded its jurisdiction by modifying the 2012 

plan without a proper pleading from the father. She further argued 

many of the court’s findings were unsupported and not in the best 

interests of the child. 

The court entered an amended final judgment that largely 

rejected the mother’s arguments, essentially stating that it could

unilaterally craft a parenting plan that it deemed to be in the best 

interests of the child. The amended final judgment included an 

amended parenting plan (the amended plan) that required the 

child to visit the father in prison four times a year. The prison 

visits had to last a least three hours or the maximum amount of 

time allowed by the prison, in order to count as a required visit. 

The amended plan required the mother to make the child available 

for the father’s phone calls on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 

between 6:30 and 9:30 pm. This appeal follows.
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Standard of Review

We review a lower court’s order modifying a parenting plan

and timesharing schedule for an abuse of discretion. Patel v. Patel, 

324 So. 3d 1001, 1003 (Fla. 1st DCA 2021); see also Bryan v. 

Wheels, 295 So. 3d 889, 890 (Fla. 1st DCA 2020) (noting 

modification proceedings are distinct from initial custody 

determinations and “courts have considerably less discretion in 

considering them ‘because [they] disrupt children's lives’”) 

(citations omitted). The lower court’s decision must be supported 

by competent, substantial evidence. Id.

Analysis

The first issue on appeal is the scope of the lower court’s 

subject matter jurisdiction. A parenting plan may be modified if a 

movant shows a substantial and material change in 

circumstances. § 61.13(3), Fla. Stat. The parties agreed the father’s 

incarceration is a substantial change in circumstances. 

A request to modify cannot be made by motion and must be 

initiated by supplemental petition. Patel, 324 So. 3d at 1003 (“[A] 

party seeking to change the ‘status quo’ of a dissolution final 

judgment must do so by a supplemental petition with proper 

service of process, and that the failure to do so is reversible error.”)

(citing Clark v. Clark, 204 So. 3d 589, 591 (Fla. 1st DCA 2016)); see 

also Fam. L. R. P. 12.110(h) (requiring modification proceedings to 

be initiated via supplemental petition, not by motion). The 

mother’s supplemental petition invoked the trial court’s 

jurisdiction to modify timesharing. Her petition asked the court to 

suspend or restrict the father’s timesharing pending a 

determination of the child’s best interests. 

While the lower court had jurisdiction to consider timesharing 

under the mother’s petition, the court erred in concluding it could

unilaterally craft a new parenting plan of its own accord. The 

father’s supplemental petition did not plead for any relief related 
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to timesharing or communication with the child.2 It is an abuse of 

discretion and reversible error for a court to award relief that is 

not requested in the pleadings. See Worthington v. Worthington, 

123 So. 3d 1189, 1190 (Fla. 2d DCA 2013); Abbott v. Abbott, 98 So. 

3d 616 (Fla. 2d DCA 2012); Patel, 324 So. 3d at 1003. The father 

did not file a proper pleading requesting prison visitation or 

modification to the phone call schedule. The first time he made the 

request was at the final hearing. In granting the father’s request, 

the court violated the mother’s due process right to be heard and 

defend against such a significant change. See Schot v. Schot, 273 

So. 3d 48, 51 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019) (reversing modifications to 

parenting plan was a violation of due process when they were not 

pled or proven). We reverse the portions of the amended plan

modifying timesharing and communication with the child. We 

affirm the remaining portions of the amended plan as they were 

either requested by the parties – sole parental responsibility by the 

mother and abatement of child support by the father – or were not 

modified.

Because we are reversing the timesharing and communication 

portions of the amended plan, it is unnecessary to examine the 

lower court’s best interests findings under section 61.13(3), Florida 

Statutes, in detail. The trial court was presented with a fairly 

unworkable scenario. The child no longer wants a relationship 

with the father, and a continued relationship has the potential to 

negatively impact him. The mother wants to do the best for the 

child and follow his lead. And the father still has a right to see his 

child, which the court must respect. § 61.13(2)(c)1., Fla. Stat. Many 

of the findings the mother takes issue with as unsupported involve 

credibility findings and weighing the interests of everyone 

involved. 

Ultimately, the court was presented with a substantial change 

warranting modification. But because the court’s modifications to

timesharing and communication favoring the father were not 

properly pled or proven, we reverse the aforementioned portions of 

2 Nor does the father contest the mother’s arguments on 

appeal.
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the amended plan and remand for further proceedings consistent 

with this opinion.

REVERSED and REMANDED.

OSTERHAUS, C.J., and LEWIS and ROBERTS, 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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Jason B. Gonzalez, Taylor H. Greene, and Amber Stoner Nunnally 

of Lawson, Huck, Gonzalez, PLLC, Tallahassee, for Appellant.

Sebastian Ahmed, pro se, Appellee.