Fla. mother wins legal battle to speak Spanish to her daughter

A Florida mother who lost custody of her daughter won a legal victory that will allow her to speak Spanish to the child during supervised visitations, all thanks to a court reversing a previous decision.

Because the father, who has primary custody of the daughter, does not speak Spanish, the courts ruled in 2010 that, “Under no circumstances shall the Mother speak Spanish to the child.”

The mother is a native Venezuelan whose first language is Spanish. While she is fluent in English, many members of her extended family are not. A Florida appellate court reversed the “No Spanish” order because they found it “isolating” for the child.

If the child does not learn Spanish, it would be difficult for her to connect with her Spanish-speaking relatives, and the appellate court claimed that neither the father nor the trial court had the right to estrange the child from her extended family.

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The court also recognized the fact that the child would benefit from speaking Spanish with the mother, as “most parents would be pleased to have their child acquire a second language.” Bilingualism is particularly useful in a state like Florida, where approximately 20 percent of the population speaks Spanish.

How the English-only ruling came about

When the Mother and the Father first separated, they shared parental responsibility of their daughter, and the mother had primary residential custody. After several years of this successful arrangement, them mother began to suffer from bipolar disorder and was involuntarily committed to an inpatient facility.

Following her hospitalization, the father fought for primary custody, and won. At this time, the court also implemented the “No Spanish” rule so that the father could supervise phone calls and interactions between the mother and the child.

On Jan. 23, 2015, the appellate court decided that this ban on Spanish between the mother and child was unfair.

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“The Mother spoke Spanish when the parties were married, and she spoke to the child in Spanish until the ex parte order forbade it,” the court said. “We can see no legal reason to continue this xenophobic language restriction at this point.”

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