Summary
The Florida Second District Court of Appeal affirmed the modification of the parties' timesharing plan but reversed the child support award. The court held that the amended judgment failed to attach and clearly identify the child support guidelines worksheets, failed to specify the father's monthly obligations for relevant periods and tax-exemption scenarios, and improperly treated the mother's 2022 income as stipulated for later years. The court remanded for recalculation and clear documentation of retroactive child support, while directing correction of references to arrearages.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the trial court reversibly erred by awarding child support without attaching the relied-upon child-support guidelines worksheets and supporting documents to the judgment and without clearly stating the father's monthly obligations for each relevant period.
- Whether the trial court erred by finding that the parties stipulated to using the mother's 2022 tax-return income to calculate child support for years after 2022.
- Whether the trial court erred by characterizing the father's retroactive child-support obligation as an arrearage.
- Whether the modification of the parties' timesharing plan should be affirmed.
Holdings
- The trial court reversibly erred by awarding child support without attaching the child-support guidelines worksheets and supporting documents to the judgment, clearly identifying the applicable time periods and dependency-tax-exemption scenarios, and stating the father's monthly obligations for each relevant period.
- The trial court erred by finding that the parties stipulated to using the mother's income reflected on her 2022 tax return to calculate the father's child-support obligations for 2023, 2024, and beyond.
- The trial court erred by referring to the father's retroactive child-support obligation as an arrearage; the terminology must be corrected on remand.
- The judgment was affirmed to the extent it modified the parties' timesharing plan.
Key quotations
“merely incorporating the documents into the amended judgment by referencing them in the rehearing order is insufficient.” (3)
“The monthly child support obligations shall be supported by child support guidelines worksheets, which must be attached to the judgment on remand and clearly labeled with the applicable time period and dependency tax exemption scenario.” (7)
Factual background
The parties' amended final judgment of paternity modified timesharing and child support. The judgment purported to adopt child-support guidelines worksheets and a spreadsheet that were not attached, did not state the father's monthly child-support obligation for the relevant periods, and characterized retroactive support as arrears. The judgment also treated the mother's 2022 tax-return income as stipulated for calculating support in later years, although the record did not show such a stipulation. The supporting child-support documents filed after judgment were incomplete, unclear, and failed to identify the applicable time periods and dependency-tax-exemption scenarios.
Procedural history
The mother filed a supplemental petition to modify timesharing and child support on July 28, 2022, and the father filed a counterpetition on January 20, 2023. After a hearing on January 31 and February 1, 2024, the circuit court entered an amended final judgment on March 18, 2024. The father moved for rehearing; the trial court entered an order on May 13, 2025, attempting to incorporate child-support documents by reference. The appellate court affirmed the timesharing modification, reversed the child-support award, and remanded.
Remand instructions
The trial court must recalculate the father's monthly child-support obligations in accordance with the opinion; clearly state the obligation for each relevant time period and dependency-tax-exemption scenario; attach clearly labeled child-support guidelines worksheets supporting those amounts to the judgment; recalculate the total retroactive child-support obligation; and correct references to retroactive support so that it is not characterized as an arrearage. The timesharing modification remains affirmed.