Actions in court that involve custody of minor children are some of the most stressful situations for litigants, judges, attorneys, but most of all, the children.

When a custody case commences, it is often in one of two forums: a family law action (dissolution of marriage, paternity, domestic violence) or a dependency action, which involves allegations of abuse, abandonment, or neglect of a child. However, there are occasions when a family law case is filed while there is an open dependency case, or vice versa. Once this occurs, the case is often referred to as a unified family law action.

In Miami-Dade County, once a dependency case merges with a family law action, the case(s) are moved to the Unified Children’s Court Division. The mechanism for this transfer is defined in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Administrative Order 17-8.

The unification of a case in Miam-Dade County often means significant changes to the dynamics of the case. One major change is the judge that is presiding over your case. Often times when there is a complicated custody case in family court, it is common for the parties to have several hearings before their assigned judge. This judge becomes familiar with the family and is able to quickly address emergent issues as there is no need to educate the court on the dynamics of the family. Unfortunately, if the case becomes unified, the original judge who was familiar with the family will no longer preside over that case. However, the case is moved to a special division of the Court, where the judges assigned to the Unified Children’s Division are extremely experienced in handling these cross-over cases, and in my experience, are caught up to speed rapidly so as to limit the delay in helping families in need due to the change of the division.

Once the case(s) are moved to the Unified Division, the litigants and the attorneys must be ready to navigate multiple cases at the same time involving the same family. When a family law case is merged with a dependency case, typically the dependency case will take precedence over the family law case as the reason the dependency case came into being is because of an allegation of immediate harm to a child. This means that whatever custody dispute that was occurring between parents will take a backseat to one or both parents having to defend themselves against allegations brought by the Department of Children and Families. For family law practitioners, this also means he or she will have to navigate several more parties to the action. In a family law case, there are usually two parents and their lawyers (unless that parent is self-represented), and sometimes guardian ad litem or a social investigator. In a dependency case, the parties involved are expansive and can include the Department of Children and Families, the Guardian Ad Litem Program, the Agency providing services to the family, and third-party caretakers of the children. Taking the parties from a family law action and combining them with all of the parties from a dependency action,  one will find themselves with a lot of cooks in the kitchen.

The above dynamic can sometimes result in what feels like chaos as to which issues should be heard first. It is the lawyer’s job to really assist the court in arranging the order of the case. Likely, the dependency case will take a front seat and there will be multiple hearings on the dependency matters until it concludes with an agreed case plan with services, a dependency trial, or in extreme situations, a termination of parental rights trial.  There are certain family law matters that a court will likely be willing to address while the dependency case is pending, such as temporary financial support and temporary time-sharing with minor children. As to the latter, time-sharing of children, even if temporarily decided by the family court judge before the case was unified, will no longer be in effect, once the unified court has to address temporary custody in a dependency action. In fact, Section 39.013(4) directs that orders entered in a dependency action “…which affect the placement of, access to,  parental time with, adoption of, or parental rights and responsibilities for a minor child shall take precedence over other orders entered in civil actions or proceedings.”

The above also does not take into account if there are complex financial matters between the parties such as equitable distribution of property under Chapter 61. The only way to methodically handle the multiple facets of a unified case is take one issue at a time and one hearing at a time, with the understanding that the pressing issues related to children will be front and center. In the event the parents do resolve their dependency case via a case plan, once that plan is successfully completed, the parent will likely reunify with their child and the dependency portion of the case will conclude. At that point, the court is within its jurisdiction to formulate a final parenting plan between the parents.

While you hope that your case never becomes unified as this means there is a concern related to harm to children, in the event that it does, the professionals involved must be prepared to navigate the new hurdles presented by allegations of abuse, abandonment and neglect of the minor child(ren) and its correlation to timesharing in the family law action. Furthermore, the practitioner should be understanding and expect there to be an extreme amount of stress on the parents, and patience is therefore critical to ensure you guide the family through this complex scenario.