No Custody Agreement, Keeping My Daughter

You're the first person to tell me I can't. Nobody has legal custody over our daughter.

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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You're the first person to tell me I can't.

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No, I'm not:

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Quoting Dogmatique

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No. You cannot withhold the child.

If your Mom refuses to hand over the child, SHE can end up in legal hot water.

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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Nobody has legal custody over our daughter.

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Wrong! Mom has full custody until you get your butt into a courtroom and a judge gives you visitation. If you withhold the child, you are going to do your case a SERIOUS disservice.

My mistake I didn't realize a different person responded

Can you show me something factual that shows this in Florida law? Because I just watched It happen less than a month ago. Same situation as mine...

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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The mother and I are split up, our daughter is 3months old.

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You split up before birth?

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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Mother is on probation and recently took her last drug test, shortly after she went and smoked marijuana. This normally wouldn't bother me as she can do what she wants, but, my daughter was with her. She also was drinking as driving with our daughter.

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Pot smoking normally wouldn't bother somebody who dates pot smokers, because people who date pot smokers.... You know where I'm going.

What do you mean by "drinking and driving"? She tied one on and was swerving all over the road? She was sipping a glass of Chablis from a crystal wine glass while cruising down the road? She had one beer and, some time later, drove her car?

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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Well she dropped off our daughter to me this morning so she's with me while mother is working. I plan I keeping her till this can be legally worked out. I don't feel safe having my daughter with her. I know I'm within my rights to do this, but how do I keep her?

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You should have been thinking about this ahead of time - that is, not thinking about "I'll wait until mom leaves the child with me then refuse to give her back," but "I wonder what the law is, and what I would have to do and prove in court to make this work".

Right now you have the potential to make things very bad for yourself if you make the wrong decisions.

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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How do I stop her from showing up at my house while I'm at work and saying to my mom "hey give me my kid!".

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Unless and until you have a court order granting you custody, she can collect her child (it is her child as well) from the third party caregiver. Even if grandma calls the police, odds are it ends with mom taking her baby home.

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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To my knowledge! I signed the BC and paperwork in the hospital

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It's a "yes or no" question. If you did complete the AOP, your assumption is probably correct - but it's best to be certain.

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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Well I do have text messages of her admitting to all of this, but I was at work when it happened.

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Admitting to "all of" what?

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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She showed up at my parents house with a bottle of juice in hand. My sister took a sip to find out it was mostly rum.

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So... nobody saw her drinking, nobody saw her showing any sign of intoxication, and she discarded the drink at your parents' house? That's not "drinking and driving". (Why was your sister drinking out of somebody else's discarded juice bottle?

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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I understand that its a uphill battle, but I also understand that Florida is the place to be if you want a fair court system.

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Courts are pretty fair in most states. Individual judges... that's more complicated. But what you often see with parents who claim the courts are unfair or prejudiced against the father are (a) fathers who played no significant parenting role until the divorce was filed and were upset that the court looked at the prior history, and (b) parents who do the legal equivalent of pointing a loaded firearm at their own foot, pulling the trigger, and arguing that it is somebody else's fault that they ended up with a bullet in their foot. The words of caution you're receiving here are to keep you from ending up in column (b).

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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My main concern right now is, how/can I stop her for taking our daughter when I'm not home. I obviously can't bring her to work with me.

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That's where the advance planning comes in - if you want to have legal custody, you need to go through a court.

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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Also: I plan to call her probation officer and request another drug test, which she should fail.

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Do you have actual facts to report? You don't want to create a context in which she can accuse you of harassing her or trying to trump up charges.

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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My mistake I didn't realize a different person responded

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For the record, I'm yet another "different person".

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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Can you show me something factual that shows this in Florida law?

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The statutes, as a whole, are here. More granularity to come.

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Quoting DSMJimmy

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Because I just watched It happen less than a month ago. Same situation as mine...

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I can tell you right now that there were differences, because there are always differences. To start with, the other story doesn't involve your sister sipping out of discarded juice bottles. But if you want us to comment on a different case, you actually have to tell us about it.

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Okay... here we go:

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Quoting Florida Statutes, Sec. 744.301 Natural guardians.

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(1) The parents jointly are the natural guardians of their own children and of their adopted children, during minority. If one parent dies, the surviving parent remains the sole natural guardian even if he or she remarries. If the marriage between the parents is dissolved, the natural guardianship belongs to the parent to whom sole parental responsibility has been granted, or if the parents have been granted shared parental responsibility, both continue as natural guardians. If the marriage is dissolved and neither parent is given parental responsibility for the child, neither may act as natural guardian of the child. The mother of a child born out of wedlock is the natural guardian of the child and is entitled to primary residential care and custody of the child unless the court enters an order stating otherwise.

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That is to say, unless and until you have a court order, the mother "is the natural guardian of the child and is entitled to primary residential care and custody of the child".

That's not to say that there aren't urgent circumstances during which a father might withhold access while he rushes to court to seek an emergency order - mom, for example, might be wanted for a felony and be openly planning to flee the state with a child or, less dramatically, mom may be a heroin addict who is clearly intoxicated and is nodding out when she comes to collect the child from dad... I'm having a hard time coming up with a scenario in which dad wouldn't have cause to call the police on top of petitioning for an emergency order, but perhaps others will have more luck.

"Mom smoked marijuana in the past month", is neither an emergency nor a basis for a change of custody. "Mom had a beverage that contained alcohol"... it's still not clear what happened or where you're trying to go with that, but it wasn't an emergency at the time (you didn't call the police nor try to keep the child then), so it's difficult to imagine that it would constitute an emergency now.

So... what else do you have?