Court Opinion

ID: 9903053
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-27 15:28:59.472525+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:05.112051
License: Public Domain

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
                      FIFTH DISTRICT

                                   NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO
                                   FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND
                                   DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED

ROXANNE EILEEN EADIE,

            Appellant,

v.                                 Case No. 5D22-2732
                                   LT Case No. 2019-DR-000621

ADAM DANIEL GILLIS,

            Appellee.

________________________________/

Opinion filed June 16, 2023

Appeal from the Circuit Court
for Lake County,
Brian Welke, Judge.

Gabriela A. Bonilla, of Bonilla Law,
PLLC, Orlando, for Appellant.

Richard McKinley, of McKinley Law
Firm, P.A., Bartow, for Appellee.

JAY, J.

      Adam Gillis (“Father”) filed a contempt motion against Roxanne Eadie

(“Mother”) over her alleged failures to abide by the timesharing schedule in
their parenting plan. The trial court granted Father’s motion and awarded him

thirteen days of compensatory timesharing. In this appeal, Mother alleges

that the court committed four reversible errors. We reject three of these

arguments without further discussion but write to address Mother’s claim that

the court granted Father relief beyond what his motion requested.

                                     I.

     Father and Mother’s second amended dissolution judgment included a

parenting plan for their two children, J.G. and H.G. The parenting plan set

forth a timesharing schedule. The issues in this appeal concern only H.G.,

the younger of the two children.

     On January 25, 2022, Father filed a contempt motion against Mother.

Concerning H.G., the motion alleged that Mother had denied Father

timesharing “several times, most recently from January 11, 2022[,] to

present.” Father asked the court to award him compensatory timesharing.

The court held an evidentiary hearing. Father and Mother were the only

witnesses. At the hearing, Father asked the court to give him compensatory

timesharing for the days he missed with H.G.

     After the hearing, the court entered an order finding that Father “is

entitled to compensatory timesharing for the thirteen (13) overnights of

timesharing denied to him.” Mother alleges that the court granted Father

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relief beyond what Father sought in his contempt motion. Specifically, she

claims that “[n]owhere” in his motion “did he ask for the makeup timeshare

that the court ordered on September 2, 2022.” As we discuss below, Mother’s

argument fails for two reasons.

                                      II.

      We use an abuse of discretion standard to review the trial court’s order.

See Pace v. Pace, 295 So. 3d 898, 900 (Fla. 5th DCA 2020).

                                      A.

      We begin by observing that a court violates due process when it

awards a remedy that a party did not seek. See Daniels v. Sorriso Dental

Studio, LLC, 164 So. 3d 778, 782 (Fla. 2d DCA 2015). This is true of both

pleadings and motions.1 See Land Dev. Servs., Inc. v. Gulf View

Townhomes, LLC, 75 So. 3d 865, 871 (Fla. 2d DCA 2011) (noting that

because of due process, “it is error to award relief that is neither requested

in the motion . . . nor argued at the hearing on that motion”); Mizrahi v.

Mizrahi, 867 So. 2d 1211, 1213 (Fla. 3d DCA 2004) (“Due process

protections prevent a trial court from deciding matters not noticed for hearing

      Mother’s brief conflates these terms. We reiterate that pleadings and
      1

motions are not synonymous. See Quillen v. Quillen, 247 So. 3d 40, 43 (Fla.
1st DCA 2018); N.S. v. Dep’t of Child. & Fams., 119 So. 3d 558, 561 (Fla.
5th DCA 2013); see also Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.100 (describing pleadings and
motions); Fla. Fam. L. R. P. 12.100 (same).

                                      3
and not the subject of appropriate pleadings.”). Thus, it would have been

error for the court to grant Father more compensatory timesharing than he

requested. See Abbott v. Abbott, 98 So. 3d 616, 617–18 (Fla. 2d DCA 2012)

(observing that granting unrequested relief is an abuse of discretion and

reversible error). However, contrary to what Mother argues, the court did not

do so.

     The court     awarded    Father thirteen    nights   of   compensatory

timesharing. Father’s motion, which he filed on January 25, 2022, alleged

that Mother had denied Father’s timesharing with H.G. “several times, most

recently from January 11, 2022[,] to present.” Father’s motion asked the

court to award him “compensatory timesharing for all time [Mother] has

interfered with or denied him in contravention of the Final Judgment.” Any

fair reader of Father’s motion would conclude that thirteen nights was the

minimum amount of makeup timesharing that Father requested. It is simply

inaccurate to contend that Father’s motion did not seek compensatory

timesharing for the days he missed with H.G. from January 11 to the date

that he filed his contempt motion.

                                     B.

     Alternatively, had there somehow been doubt about Father’s request

to receive makeup timesharing for the days he missed in January, he

                                     4
eliminated that doubt at the hearing. Father testified about the missed

January time and his communications with Mother concerning those days.

Father’s testimony included this exchange:

      Q [Father’s counsel]: Are you asking for makeup time for the time
      you missed between January 11th and the 24th?

      A [Father]: Yes.

      Q: How much are you asking for?

      A: I’m asking for all of it, all the makeup.

      Mother did not object or otherwise argue at the hearing that Father was

seeking timesharing beyond the scope of his motion. To the contrary, Mother

offered competing testimony about her reasons for not making H.G. available

for the scheduled timesharing days. Furthermore, during her cross-

examination of Father, Mother’s counsel twice clarified that Father was only

seeking compensatory timesharing as to H.G. rather than for both children.2

At the end of the hearing, the court asked, “Did we cover everything?”

Mother’s counsel answered, “Yes, Your Honor.”

      “An issue is tried by consent where the parties fail to object to the

introduction of evidence on the issue.” Dep’t of Rev. v. Vanjaria Enters., Inc.,

      2
        Father’s motion sought compensatory timesharing with J.G., but
Father abandoned that claim at the evidentiary hearing. He also abandoned
his request to modify the parenting plan as to parental responsibility for
H.G.’s medical decisions.

                                        5
675 So. 2d 252, 254 (Fla. 5th DCA 1996); see, e.g., Johnson v. Johnson,

979 So. 2d 350, 352 (Fla. 5th DCA 2008) (“[T]he categorization of the 5.25

acres as either marital or non-marital was the main issue before the General

Magistrate and was tried without objection by Husband. Accordingly, this

issue was clearly tried by consent.”). In deciding whether an issue was tried

by consent, a court considers two “interrelated criteria”: whether there was

“a fair opportunity to defend” the issue and whether the defending party

“could have offered additional evidence” if the issue had been included in the

operative pleading or motion. Anchor Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co. v. Trif, 322 So.

3d 663, 670 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021) (citation and internal quotations omitted).

     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.3

     3
          The court found that regardless of whether H.G. was ill, Father was
still entitled to his scheduled timesharing under the parenting plan.

                                      6
      It is also true that a party’s lack of objection does not render an issue

tried by consent “when the evidence introduced is relevant to other issues

properly being tried.” Id. (quoting Raimi v. Furlong, 702 So. 2d 1273, 1285

(Fla. 3d DCA 1997)). But here, there were no other issues being tried, given

that Father expressly abandoned his timesharing claim concerning J.G. and

his claim about parental responsibility for H.G.’s medical decisions. The only

live, sought-after remedy from Father’s motion was Father’s claim for

compensatory timesharing with H.G. On this record, any conceivable

discrepancy between Father’s motion and his request for relief at the hearing

was tried by consent.

                                      III.

      The court did not award Father compensatory timesharing above what

Father requested, nor did the court commit reversible error in any of the other

ways that Mother alleges. Accordingly, we affirm the order on appeal.

      AFFIRMED.

SOUD and BOATWRIGHT, JJ., concur.

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