JAMIE HERSHBERGER V.STASH HERSHBERGER

FIFTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

STATE OF FLORIDA

_____________________________ Case No. 5D2023-0793 LT Case No. 2021-DR-000407 _____________________________ JAMIE HERSHBERGER, Appellant, v. STASH HERSHBERGER, Appellee. _____________________________ On appeal from the Circuit Court for Sumter County. Michelle T. Morley, Judge. Eduardo J. Mejias, of AAA Family Law, LLC, Altamonte Springs, for Appellant. Freya L. Mclain, of Crawford, Modica & Holt, Chartered Attorneys at Law, Tavares, for Appellee. July 12, 2024

WALLIS, J.

Jamie Hershberger (“Appellant”) appeals a Final Judgment of Dissolution of Marriage alleging that five errors were committed by the trial judge. We affirm the decisions by the trial court with regard to four of the alleged errors without comment. We reverse the trial court’s decision to delegate to Stash Hershberger

3 that reduced mother’s overall amount of timesharing and eliminated overnight timesharing, except portion ordering parents to defer to therapist about expanding timesharing in summer); Subramanian v. Subramanian, 239 So. 3d 719, 721 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018) (holding trial court did not abuse discretion by conditioning increased timesharing on successful completion of parenting courses and therapy, but erred by delegating authority to determine additional visitation to therapists and guardian ad litem); Witt-Bahls v. Bahls, 203 So. 3d 207, 209 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016) (reversing order delegating decision to grant unsupervised visitation to child’s therapist); Clark v. Clark, 35 So. 3d 989, 990 n.1 (Fla. 5th DCA 2010) (holding trial court’s directive that if minor child desired to spend more time (or less time) with former wife, then child shall be allowed to do so “improperly places decisions with regard to visitation in the hands of the child”); Lovell, 14 So. 3d at 1114 (reversing portion of order prohibiting former husband from exposing children to his new wife “until such time as the children’s therapist . . . deems it appropriate”); cf. Lewis v. Lewis, 665 So. 2d 322, 324 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995) (holding timesharing schedule awarding husband visitation every other weekend, telephone contact during the week, and half of every summer, was reasonable, thus the “mere fact that the trial court, in addition to the reasonable court-ordered visitation, made allowances for the parties to agree to additional visitation times does not place visitation under the wife's control”). But see cf. In re H.T., 204 So. 3d 120, 121 (Fla. 2d DCA 2016) (stating guardianship order that awarded parent one hour per week of supervised visitation, with additional supervised and unsupervised visitation at guardian’s discretion, comported with section 39.6221(2)(c) because it did not leave frequency and nature of parent’s visitation to guardian’s “complete discretion”). We reverse the Final Judgment and Timesharing Plan to the extent it delegates the decision regarding additional timesharing to others and remand with instructions for the court to make these decisions. AFFIRMED in part; REVERSED in part; REMANDED with instructions.