{"id":2224,"date":"2011-07-18T08:52:30","date_gmt":"2011-07-18T08:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bresky-merger.local.com\/posts\/extended-turkish-vacation-fourth-dca-affirms-trial-courts-exercise-of-home-state-jurisdiction-to-make-custody-determination-despite-childrens-absence-from-florida\/"},"modified":"2011-07-18T08:52:30","modified_gmt":"2011-07-18T08:52:30","slug":"extended-turkish-vacation-fourth-dca-affirms-trial-courts-exercise-of-home-state-jurisdiction-to-make-custody-determination-despite-childrens-absence-from-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/extended-turkish-vacation-fourth-dca-affirms-trial-courts-exercise-of-home-state-jurisdiction-to-make-custody-determination-despite-childrens-absence-from-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"Extended Turkish Vacation: Fourth DCA Affirms Trial Court\u2019s Exercise of \u201cHome State\u201d Jurisdiction to Make Custody Determination Despite Children\u2019s Absence From Florida for Seven Months"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Sarpel v. Eflanli, 4D09-4828 &amp; 4D10-3146<br \/>\nJune 1, 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Fourth District recently addressed a trial court\u2019s jurisdiction to make a custody ruling under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (\u201cUCCJEA\u201d). The father had Turkish and American citizenship, and the mother was a Turkish citizen. The family members were longtime residents of Florida. On March 14, 2006, the family went to Turkey. The father returned to Florida on November 8, 2006 and filed a petition for dissolution seeking a custody determination. The mother and children did not return to Florida until January 28, 2007. Following a final judgment designating the father primary residential parent, the mother contended that Florida lacked jurisdiction to make the custody ruling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHome state\u201d is defined under the UCCJEA as \u201cthe state in which a child lived with a parent or a person acting as a parent for at least 6 consecutive months immediately before the commencement of a child custody proceeding.\u201d \u00a7 61.503(7), Fla. Stat. The statute makes temporary absences part of the time period. The mother contended the trip to Turkey was intended to be a permanent relocation and that the father had later changed his mind. The father maintained that the trip was only intended to be an extended vacation. The trial court agreed with the father, finding that the children\u2019s absence was temporary, so that Florida was their \u201chome state\u201d for UCCJEA purposes and the court had jurisdiction to make the custody ruling.<\/p>\n<p>On appeal, the Fourth District reasoned that Florida could be considered the children\u2019s \u201chome state\u201d under section 61.514(1)(a) if it qualified as such at any time during the six months preceding the father\u2019s filing of the petition for dissolution of marriage. Applying the six-month \u201clookback,\u201d the Court focused on the date of May 8, 2006, at which time the children had been in Turkey only seven weeks. The Court affirmed the trial court\u2019s finding of that seven week absence as temporary and the conclusion that Florida was the children\u2019s \u201chome state\u201d on that date. The Court therefore affirmed the decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sarpel v. Eflanli, 4D09-4828 &amp; 4D10-3146 June 1, 2011 The Fourth District recently addressed a trial court\u2019s jurisdiction to make a custody ruling under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (\u201cUCCJEA\u201d). The father had Turkish and American citizenship, and the mother was a Turkish citizen. The family members were longtime residents of Florida&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1811,1806],"tags":[2109,1858,2110,1922,2111,1919,2112,2113,2114,2115,2116,2076,1932,1882,2117,2118,2119,2120,2121,2122,2123,1912,2124,2125],"class_list":["post-2224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4th-dca-rulings","category-family","tag-american-citizenship","tag-appeal","tag-child","tag-child-custody","tag-children","tag-custody","tag-custody-determination","tag-dissolution","tag-dissolution-of-marriage","tag-eflanli","tag-father","tag-florida","tag-fourth-dca","tag-fourth-district-court-of-appeals","tag-home-state","tag-home-state-jurisdiction","tag-mother","tag-permanent-relocation","tag-residential-parent","tag-sarpel","tag-temporary-absences","tag-trial-court","tag-uccjea","tag-uniform-child-custody-jurisdictional-and-enforcement-act"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssrga.com\/appellate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}