Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed August 16, 2017.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
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No. 3D16-2432
Lower Tribunal No. 15-27325
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Thomas E. Strinko,
Appellant,
vs.
Sontha S. Strinko,
Appellee.
An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, George A.
Sarduy, Judge.
Thomas E. Strinko, in proper person.
Hinshaw & Culbertson, LLP and Elizabeth S. Baker, for appellee.
Before ROTHENBERG, C.J., and SALTER, and FERNANDEZ, JJ.
FERNANDEZ, J.
Thomas Strinko appeals the trial court’s dismissal of Strinko’s petition to
domesticate and modify an Ohio judgment on the basis that Florida does not permit
a Florida court to grant grandparents visitation. We reverse and remand, as the
Ohio order awarding Strinko grandparent’s visitation rights is entitled to
enforcement under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States
Constitution.
Strinko filed a petition seeking domestication of a judgment entered by the
Ohio Court of Common Pleas, Juvenile Division, in Butler County, Ohio. The
judgment granted Strinko supervised visitation with his granddaughter, K.C.
K.C.’s mother, Sontha Sue Strinko, moved to dismiss the petition on the basis that
grandparent visitation ordered by a foreign court is unenforceable in Florida as a
matter of law. The trial court granted the motion and dismissed the petition, and
Strinko now appeals.
Subsequent to the trial court’s decision, the Florida Supreme Court decided
the issue of enforcement of a similar order from a sister state based on the Full
Faith and Credit clause of the United States Constitution. Clearly, the trial court
did not have the benefit of this decision when it entered its order dismissing
Strinko’s petition. In Ledoux-Nottingham v. Downs, 210 So. 3d 1217 (Fla. 2017),
the Florida Supreme Court held that Full Faith and Credit, rather than comity
principles, governs the domestication and enforcement of the judgment of a sister
state entered by a court of competent jurisdiction. The Court further held that
despite Florida’s privacy laws and their effect on grandparent visitation, the
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properly domesticated judgment of a sister state allowing grandparent visitation is
enforceable in Florida, and a trial court has no discretion but to enforce such a
properly entered and domesticated judgment. Id.
Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s order dismissing Strinko’s petition
and remand to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
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