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523 So. 2d 172

523 So.2d 172

13 Fla.L.Weekly 799

Myrick v. Myrick

District Court of Appeal of Florida · decided 1988-03-30

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“will result in further destruction of what is left, after divorce, of th[e] family unit.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 948 So. 2d 1021 - Matias v. Matias

Relies on 94 So. 2d 849 - Arons v. Arons

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1988-03-30

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently June 2017

3 state decisions

101988199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

LEHAN, Judge.

¶1We reverse the portion of the final judgment of dissolution of marriage splitting custody of the two children of the parties.

¶2The trial court ordered that residential custody of the 8-year-old daughter be with the mother and that residential custody of the 2-year-old son be with the father. There were no findings made in support thereof.

¶3As the Florida Supreme Court said in Arons v. Arons, 94 So.2d 849, 853 (Fla.1957), “[Splitting custody] will result in further destruction of what is left, after divorce, of this family unit. We are of the view that the children in a family should not be separated from each other and distributed about in different homes, except for the most compelling cause.” We do not find any such compelling cause reflected in the order or the record.

¶4The father asks that he be awarded custody of both children. There appears to be much in support of the father’s request, for example, the HRS custody report. Yet the record does not appear to show that the mother is unfit to have custody. In fact, the HRS report concluded that neither parent was unfit.

¶5Under these circumstances we must reverse. But it seems inappropriate that this court now further inject itself into a situation which the trial court is in a much better position to evaluate and resolve.

¶6Accordingly, we remand to the trial court to either make written or verbal findings to justify the split of custody or to hold a hearing to determine which parent should have custody of both children.

SCHOONOVER, A.C.J., and HALL, J., concur.
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