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668 So. 2d 329

Docket No. 95-2106.

Sullivan v. Sullivan

Angelia SULLIVAN, Appellant, v. Robert L. SULLIVAN, Appellee.

District Court of Appeal of Florida

Decided February 21, 1996.

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District Court of Appeal of Florida · decided 1996-02-21

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“all factors affecting the welfare and interests of the child”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 842 So. 2d 168 - Miller v. Miller

“is subject to an abuse of discretion standard of review.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Young v. Hector

Relies on 382 So. 2d 1197 - Canakaris v. Canakaris · 377 So. 2d 1150 - Applegate v. Barnett Bank of Tallahassee · 662 So. 2d 751 - Cherradi v. Lavoie

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1996-02-21

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently June 2011

12 state decisions

60199620002010decided

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 →

¶1Angelia Sullivan, Fort Pierce, pro se appellant.

¶2Robert L. Sullivan, Port St. Lucie, pro se appellee.

¶3PARIENTE, Judge.

¶4This is a pro se appeal by the mother, the former wife, from Final Judgment of Dissolution of Marriage which awarded primary residential custody of the parties' minor child to the father, the former husband. Appellant contests this award claiming that she should have been given custody of the minor child as she is his mother. However, the "tender years" doctrine has been statutorily abolished, and courts may not give any preference in determining custody to the mother based solely on the age of the child. See § 61.13(2)(b)1, Fla. Stat. (1993); Cherradi v. Lavoie,662 So.2d 751 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995). Instead, courts must evaluate all relevant statutory factors affecting the welfare and interests of the child. See § 61.13(3), Fla.Stat. (1993). The trial court's determination of custody made *330 after evaluation of these factors is subject to an abuse of discretion standard of review. See Canakaris v. Canakaris,382 So.2d 1197 (Fla.1980).

¶5In this case, there was a final hearing by the trial court at which evidence relevant to each of the statutory factors was presented and considered by the court. Based on the record before us, it appears that the trial court appropriately evaluated the relevant statutory factors in reaching its decision. The record on appeal contains only a brief excerpt of the court's oral pronouncement of its decision to award custody of the minor child to the father and does not contain a transcript of the evidence taken at that hearing. While we are not unsympathetic to the plight of appellant who asserts she cannot afford a transcript of the entire hearing, in the absence of a record demonstrating reversible error, we must conclude that the trial court acted properly. See Applegate v. Barnett Bank of Tallahassee,377 So.2d 1150 (Fla.1979).

¶6We therefore affirm the final judgment.

¶7GLICKSTEIN and STEVENSON, JJ., concur.

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