Bowman v. Kardash

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DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA
SECOND DISTRICT

ZANE BOWMAN,
Appellant,
V.
REGINA A. KARDASH,

Appellee.

No. 2D2024-2823

February 25, 2026

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Pinellas County; Steve D. Berlin,
Judge.

Tara Scott Lynn of Law Offices of Tara J. Scott, P.A., St. Petersburg, for
Appellant.

Regina A. Kardash, pro se.

NORTHCUTT, Judge.

Zane Bowman and Regina Kardash had a child together in 2017.
They have never been married. In remarkably heated and tortuous
paternity litigation, the circuit court ultimately entered a judgment
ordering equal timesharing and shared parental responsibility, from
which Bowman appeals.

The litigation was unnecessarily lengthy and contentious, almost

entirely due to Kardash's extreme and persistent misbehavior. We need

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not describe her conduct in detail. Suffice it to say that Kardash's
instability and vituperativeness—directed at Bowman, his attorney,
third-party providers, and even the court—were of an uncommon
magnitude, to the point, for example, that the child's school disenrolled
him and that on another occasion, the court was forced to order an
emergency suspension of her timesharing.1 Given the challenges posed
by Kardash's behavior, we commend the circuit judge for the patient,
even-handed, and deliberative manner in which he conducted the
proceeding.
After careful consideration, albeit with some reluctance, we
conclude that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion by ordering
equal, unsupervised timesharing. Notably, the court itself hesitated to
do so, writing that "[t]he court has considered granting the Mother
limited timesharing without overnights. Her behavior is some of the
most extreme in family court. The court questions whether it should."
Ultimately, the court concluded that Kardash did not pose a physical
1 The order under review altered a parenting plan first prescribed in
a prior Partial Final Judgment of Paternity that, among other things,
established Bowman's paternity. Kardash contends that this prior order
was entitled to res judicata effect, requiring a substantial change of
circumstances to permit a modification of the parenting plan. But that
judgment was not rendered final at the time, owing to motions for
rehearing filed by both parties, such that the instant judgment
constitutes a final order that made an initial parenting determination. In
any event, circumstances did change following entry of the Partial Final
Judgment. Seemingly wounded by findings in that order, Kardash
immediately overreacted. She impulsively declared that the court had
deemed her to be an unfit mother, filed a motion to have her own
parental rights terminated, and otherwise embarked on a course of such
irrational, bizarre, and chaotic behavior that Bowman rightly sought an
ex parte emergency suspension of Kardash's timesharing. The court
temporarily suspended Kardash's timesharing three days after entering
the Partial Final Judgment.

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threat to the child, but it observed that "[t]his finding is a close one. The
record evidence could as easily support the Mother only exercising
supervised timesharing due to her erratic behavior and her subjective
beliefs of abuse and conspiracy not being objectively consistent with the
facts."
Importantly, the circuit court's fear for the child's safety was
allayed by the opinion of a psychologist who had evaluated and tested
Kardash and found that she scored low on the child abuse potential
inventory. The psychologist testified that he did not have a concern,
provided that Kardash was in counseling and following psychiatric advice
for medication. But even though the court placed "great weight" on that
testimony, the court did not include in the parenting order a directive
that Kardash comply with those requirements.
In C.N. v. I.G.C., 316 So. 3d 287, 292 (Fla. 2021), the court
described a therapy requirement as a "protective measure[]" intended to
further the success of the parties' parenting plan. That is precisely the
purpose such a requirement would serve in this case. Because the
psychologist's recommendation of equal, unsupervised timesharing was
expressly conditioned on counseling and psychiatric care, the omission
of those conditions from the final parenting order was an abuse of
discretion. This necessitates a reversal and remand for the imposition of
reasonable and necessary protective measures consistent with the
psychologist's recommendation.
Turning to the parental responsibility provision, we have difficulty
sussing why the circuit court ordered fully shared parental responsibility
under the facts of this case. Section 61.13(2)(c)4, Florida Statutes
(2024), authorizes a court to assign responsibility over specific aspects of
the child's welfare to one party or the other based on the best interests of

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the child. "Areas of responsibility may include education, health care,
and any other responsibilities that the court finds unique to a particular
family." Id. Beyond that, section 61.13(2)(c)5 requires the court to order
sole parental responsibility to one parent if it is in the child's best
interests.
The circumstances of this case begged for the exercise of the circuit
court's authority to tailor the parties' parenting authority. In its final
order, the court wrote that "[n]early every institution related to the minor
child had difficulty working with the Mother." Indeed, "[t]he Mother
launches into ad homin[em] attacks on nearly everyone. Most of the
people she attacks are dedicated to helping the minor child. She attacks
them when things are not done exactly her way. This is harmful to the
minor child." Certainly, it was not in the child's best interest to permit
this behavior to continue. On the record before it at that time, the court
should have imposed appropriate limitations on Kardash's parental
responsibility or at least included in its judgment an explanation for
failing to do so.
That said, substantial time has now passed since the circuit court
received the evidence in our record. We are unaware of how the parties
have fared since or what the current circumstances are related to the
child's well-being. Therefore, on remand the court must revisit its shared
responsibility determination in light of this opinion and the current
situation. It may either reaffirm its award of full shared parental
responsibility if the current circumstances permit, or it may alter the
award as appropriate. The court may take additional evidence on this
issue as it deems necessary.
Affirmed in part; reversed in part; remanded with instructions.

KHOUZAM and MORRIS, JJ., Concur.

Opinion subject to revision prior publication.