Court Opinion

ID: 9408345
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-12 15:06:28.920874+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:43.371467
License: Public Domain

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
                              FOURTH DISTRICT

                             JEKTOR AYALA,
                                Appellant,

                                      v.

                              JARISEL VEGA,
                                 Appellee.

                              No. 4D22-1779

                              [July 12, 2023]

   Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit,
Broward County; Mariya Weekes, Judge; L.T. Case No. FMCE14-000918.

   Susan R. Brown of Susan R. Brown, P.A., Plantation, for appellant.

   Meaghan K. Marro of Marro Law, P.A., Plantation, for appellee.

GERBER, J.

   The father appeals from the circuit court’s final judgment on the
father’s petition to relocate from Broward County to Palm Coast. The final
judgment ratified a magistrate’s report which had recommended granting
the father’s relocation petition, but changing the parties’ previously
agreed-upon 50/50 timesharing arrangement to the mother having
majority timesharing in Broward County.

    The father primarily argues the circuit court abused its discretion in
modifying the parties’ previously agreed-upon 50/50 timesharing, because
the mother never filed a pleading seeking modification, and the father did
not try the modification issue by consent, thus violating his due process
rights. See Romero v. Brabham, 300 So. 3d 665, 668 (Fla. 4th DCA 2020)
(“Granting unrequested relief absent proper notice is a violation of due
process.”) (citations omitted); Bailey v. Bailey, 227 So. 3d 768, 768 (Fla.
1st DCA 2017) (“[W]e agree with the former wife that the trial court erred
in requiring the parties to equally split the responsibility of transportation
for timesharing because that issue was not pled or tried by consent.”).

  We disagree with the father’s argument. The record indicates the
mother’s answer requested that she be given majority timesharing.
Further, during the trial, the mother, like the father, requested majority
timesharing. At no point during or after the trial did the father object on
the ground that the mother had not filed a pleading requesting that she be
given majority timesharing. So even if the mother’s answer had not
requested that she be given majority timesharing, the father tried that
issue by consent.

   The father’s remaining arguments lack merit and do not require further
discussion. Thus, we affirm the circuit court’s final judgment. However,
our affirmance is without prejudice to the father filing another petition
seeking to relocate back to Broward County and resume the parties’
previously agreed-upon 50/50 timesharing arrangement, as the father had
alternatively suggested during the final hearing. We take no position on
the merits of such a petition.

   Affirmed.

CIKLIN and KUNTZ, JJ., concur.

                           *         *        *

   Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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