Family Law Rules.

AuthorObradovich, Maria Liliana
PositionAnnual Reports of Committees of the Florida Bar: 2018-2019

It has been an eventful year in the Family Law Rules Committee. To fast track committee matters, we continued to have telephone conferences in between in-person meetings, a practice established by our previous chair. I am extremely thankful for all the hard work our past and current members have done, and I appreciate the opportunities to address fundamental issues with the Supreme Court.

In 2017, the Supreme Court directed this committee, the Juvenile Court Rules Committee, and the Steering Committee on Children and Families in the Court to jointly review Rule 12.407 pertaining to the testimony and attendance of minor children in court. The joint committee has since worked diligently in formulating a proposed amendment to address the court's concerns. In May 2018, the joint committee submitted a final proposed amendment to the Supreme Court that was accepted in SC18853. The opinion was published on December 13, 2018, and the amended rule became effective immediately. The adopted amendments resolve the pressing issue of conflicting Juvenile Court Rules and the Family Law Rules with regard to children in court. For their efforts, I thank the members of the joint committee for their collaboration in addressing the definite need for protecting children from harmful and unnecessary exposure to litigation.

In August 2018, the Florida Supreme Court had adopted part of the committee's proposal to align form 12.961 with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Turner v. Rogers, 564 U.S. 431 (2011). The Florida Supreme Court fully adopted the proposed amendments to the form that now notifies a contemnor that their ability to pay is a critical issue in a contempt hearing. However, the court declined to adopt a proposal of making the form universal for both general magistrates and child support hearing officers. Instead, the court determined that any proposed changes to forms 12.921 and 12.920(c) should be made in a separate case. This committee has since revisited the court's concerns and a proposed change will be submitted in the 2020 cycle report.

This past November, the committee filed an out-of-cycle report to address the longstanding confusion of the federal income withholding order and its inconsistencies with Florida's income deduction order. The report was acknowledged by the Supreme Court in SC18-1908 and was published for comments in the December 2018 issue of The Florida Bar News. Since then, only one comment was filed during the comment...

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