## Facts

- In a dissolution action, the parents shared parental responsibility for a minor child who was sixteen months old at the final hearing.
- The trial court designated the mother as the primary residential parent and awarded the father reasonable visitation.
- The mother sought permission to relocate with the child to Michigan, where she had family and where the father also had extended family nearby.
- The trial court authorized relocation, but delayed it until the child turned three years old, approximately twenty months after the final hearing.
- The trial court explained the delay as necessary to allow frequent father-child contact during infancy through age three to support bonding.
- The father challenged the relocation ruling, arguing the court improperly decided best interests based on a future projection rather than present circumstances.

## Issues

1. Whether a court may grant a custodial parent’s relocation request based on a prospective determination that relocation will be in the child’s best interests at a future date, rather than evaluating best interests at the time of the final hearing.

## Decision

- The Florida Supreme Court held that a trial court may not approve relocation based on a prospective best-interests determination at a future time.
- The court ruled that relocation must be decided based on the circumstances existing at the time of the final hearing.
- The court quashed the district court decision to the extent it approved a delayed, prospective relocation order and remanded for proceedings consistent with its opinion.
- The court approved prior First District decisions rejecting prospective relocation rulings to the extent consistent with its holding.

## Legal Principles

- Relocation decisions must rest on a present-focused best-interests analysis, not predictions about future conditions.
- When relocation is not shown to be in the child’s best interests at the time of the final hearing, the proper result is denial, leaving the relocating parent to file a new petition if later circumstances support relocation.
- Prospective relocation orders are disfavored because conditions affecting the child’s welfare and the parents’ situations may materially change between judgment and a future relocation date.

## Conclusion

The Florida Supreme Court required that parental relocation requests be resolved using the child’s best interests based on circumstances at the final hearing, rejecting delayed relocation orders that depend on speculative future determinations and directing that later changes be addressed through a new petition rather than prospective authorization.


Arthur v. Arthur, 54 So. 3d 454 (Fla. 2010)