Legal Question in Family Law in Florida
I am scared please help,
i just started a part time job, and in my court ordered it explains that on holidays my ex is to bring our daughter to jacksonville, and i am to meet him half way in orlando to return her.
I work on presidents day and i dont get off till 4 pm, however in my court order im due to have her back by 5 in palm bay, which is 2 hours away from jacksonville.
i let him know in advance not to bring her, and that i would make up weekend becuase i am working thru the holiday weekend. However he brought our daughter anyway, i am so scared becuase i can not bring her back becuase i cant leave my job, i will get an occurance and due to fact that im still in a probation period. i cant miss time from work.
Can i be arrested for not bringing her becuase i haft to work and even thou i told him in advance that this is not a good weekend for me to get her becuase of my hours, i ask if i could reshedule he told me no
1 Answer from Attorneys
It definitely sounds like this arrangement is not working for you and you need to set up a different timesharing arrangement altogether to suit your new job schedule. I'm assuming because you didn't mention any family or friends that there is nobody else available to help you out with the pick up drop off arrangement or babysitting. If it's a problem, you should see if father can agree to entering into an agreement and new order to modify timesharing schedule. If he doesn't, then your other option would be to file a Petition for Modification, which would require additional monies and time to be spent. The easiest of the two options is to speak with father and see if you two can agree to modify the schedule. If that doesn't work, you know the other option. I'm not sure what steps your ex would go through to get the child back, but if you missed your return schedule, he may either come out to where you're at with police escorts to pick up your child or file an emergency motion for contempt with the court, which would probably be a lot of work on his end if he's unrepresented by an attorney. For the reasons you stated, I would say you are not going to get arrested, however depending on what your ex will allege for your failure to bring child back to him that would determine how much the police are involved. Please document all times you have tried to reason with ex as to the drop off/pick up arrangement for your records should you have to go to court down the line.