Articles Posted in Alimony

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Going to court can be a lot like athletic or other competitions. In each situation, you want to make sure that you give yourself as many avenues for success as you possibly can. A recent alimony dispute from Palm Beach County demonstrates this well. In this case, the Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed a trial court’s decision that threw out an ex-husband’s alimony modification request. The appeals court revived the husband’s case because, regardless of whether or not the husband’s ability-to-pay argument was premature, he also presented a valid case of the wife’s reduced need for alimony, and that reduced-need argument alone was enough to allow him to continue pursuing his modification case.

The husband, L.F., and his wife, C.F., had divorced some time ago. As part of that divorce case, the wife received an award of alimony. In more recent times, the husband went back to court, asking for a modification of his alimony obligation. The husband had two arguments underlying his assertion that circumstances had changed and that the court should lower his alimony payments. First, the husband had recently retired, and this change in employment status had substantially lowered his income. Second, in the period following the couple’s divorce, the wife had come into “additional substantial and unanticipated” streams of income, which had greatly reduced the wife’s need for alimony.

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A lot of divorce cases have multiple distinct but related components. Even if a couple has no minor children in the home, there may be numerous elements to a divorce case, including the distribution of assets and debts, as well as alimony. When a trial court issues an order in your divorce, the law requires the judge to make certain factual findings as part of the ruling. In one case from North Florida, the lack of some required findings led the First District Court of Appeal to grant a husband’s appeal and send the case back to the trial court.

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There are many things that can play a role in the outcome of your Florida alimony case. The court must decide whether your marriage counts as a short, moderate, or long-term marriage. The judge must also determine the paying spouse’s ability to pay and the recipient spouse’s need. Another thing that can add an extra layer of complexity to your case is if the recipient spouse is disabled. In one recent case from the Tampa Bay area, the Second District Court of Appeal threw out part of a trial court’s ruling in a divorce judgment because the lower court only awarded the wife durational, rather than permanent, alimony, even though the wife was permanently disabled and could not return to work.

The couple in the case married on New Year’s Eve in 2002. Just short of a decade later, they separated. A year after that, the wife filed for divorce. In that filing, she asked for alimony. The husband, at that point, was earning $117,000 per year in gross income. The wife had a degree in psychology and had previously worked as a counselor, but she had developed several medical problems. Shortly before the divorce, an administrative law judge had determined that she was permanently disabled and could not return to work, due to fibromyalgia, traumatic brain injury, and back problems. The wife’s disability benefits, which amounted to a gross of $880 per month, were her only income.

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Alimony reform in Florida is dead for at least one year after an April 15 veto of SB 668 by Governor Rick Scott. The veto represents the second time Scott has vetoed a bill that would have updated Florida’s alimony laws. While the most recent bill removed certain retroactivity provisions from the alimony reforms, which Scott cited as problematic in vetoing the previous bill, the governor again issued a veto, this time due to certain additional reforms addressing timesharing laws, which he said ran the risk of “putting the wants of a parent before the child’s best interest.”

Had it become law, the reform measure would have made several major changes in the way courts resolve divorce and child custody cases. The new law would have ended permanent alimony and would have set up alimony calculation guidelines as well. These guidelines would have assessed the amount and duration of alimony based upon each spouse’s income and the length of the marriage. The most recent bill also would have created a presumption in favor of alimony for all marriages except those lasting two years or less.

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In an alimony case, one of the more important issues you may face is deciding whether or not you or your spouse is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed. This issue was at the center of one South Florida man’s appeal of his divorce judgment. The man successfully persuaded the 4th District Court of Appeal to send the case back to the trial court because that lower court had imputed no income to the wife despite clear evidence that she was voluntarily underemployed.

In this case, R.M. (husband) and C.M. (wife) from Broward County had sought a divorce after 30-plus years of marriage. As part of the trial court’s judgment of dissolution in the case, that court awarded alimony to the wife. In calculating that alimony amount, the trial court imputed no income to the wife. It was on this basis that the husband appealed the alimony award.

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One of the more frustrating turns of events for individuals ordered to pay alimony is the discovery that the ex-spouse to whom they are making support payments has moved in with a boyfriend or girlfriend. In some situations, your ex-spouse’s decision to cohabitate with another person may be valid grounds for modifying or terminating your alimony payments. Whether you succeed in obtaining a modification or termination of your obligation depends largely on the facts of your ex-spouse’s new relationship and, in some cases, which terms you put in your marital settlement agreement. As a recent Central Florida case illustrates, even if you succeed, it is important to keep in mind that there are limits to what the law can do for you.

One way to succeed is to prove that your ex is involved in a “supportive relationship,” as defined by Florida Statutes Section 61.14. That’s what happened in a recent Volusia County case. The ex-husband went to court alleging that his ex-wife, to whom he paid alimony, had entered into a supportive relationship under the statute and that he should be entitled not only to a termination of his obligation to make future alimony payments, but also to have his obligation retroactively terminated going all the way to the date that the ex-wife moved in with her partner. The ex-husband succeeded in proving the existence of a supportive relationship involving the ex-wife, and the trial court retroactively terminated her alimony as the husband had requested.

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A North Florida trial court’s decision to award an ex-wife only enough alimony to cover her insurance expenses was recently thrown out by the 1st District Court of Appeal as not proper under the requirements of the Florida Statutes. In this wife’s case, failing to award enough alimony to cover her shelter and medications required reversal. The ruling reminds those involved in divorce matters that the law demands consideration of all of the recipient’s necessities as established during the couple’s marriage, and it also serves a clear warning of the potential risks of proceeding without legal counsel.

The couple, J.R. (husband) and T.R. (wife) from Clay County, recently divorced after a long-term marriage. The husband had an income of more than $78,000 per year. The wife, who did not have a high-school degree, had an annual income of less than $16,500. When the trial court came to address the issue of alimony, the judge concluded that the wife’s needs consisted only of her insurance, including both auto and health. The cost for these expenses was $600 per month, so the trial court awarded the wife $600 monthly in permanent alimony.

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A Central Florida wife will receive a second chance to make her case for an award of alimony, thanks to a recent decision issued by the 5th District Court of Appeal. The appeals court threw out an Osceola County trial court ruling that had given the wife zero alimony. One of the key errors that led to this reversal was the trial court’s conclusion that the couple’s marriage was one of “moderate” duration, despite the fact that the spouses had been married for more than 17 years when the husband filed for divorce.

In this case, Mr. J.Q. (husband) filed for divorce from his wife, Ms. J.Q. (wife), shortly after the couple’s 17th wedding anniversary. The couple’s divorce trial, though, did not take place until six years later. When the trial court issued its ruling, the judge stated that, taking into consideration each spouse’s relative income along with the fact that the couple’s was a marriage of moderate duration, the wife was not entitled to receive alimony.

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A wife fighting to avoid using her alimony to pay a lien imposed by her former divorce lawyer must return to a Broward County trial court to continue litigating the matter. The 4th District Court of Appeal concluded that whether or not the attorney’s lien was enforceable against the wife’s alimony award depended on whether the alimony was needed to pay for the wife’s “daily sustenance or the minimal necessities of life,” or whether it was used to cover less basic expenses.

The case began when M.T. (wife) filed for divorce from her husband, L.T.. The wife sought, among other things, an award of alimony in order to maintain the lifestyle to which she had been accustomed. The wife hired an attorney, but, three months into the relationship, the attorney and the client parted ways. Ultimately, the divorce case proceeded to its conclusion. The trial court’s ruling included an award of alimony to the wife.
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A recent 1st District Court of Appeal ruling provides insight upon all the analysis that must go into an a award of attorneys’ fees in a dissolution of marriage case. Awarding fees and costs requires finding that one spouse has a need for such an award, and the other spouse has the ability to pay. In the recent case, the trial court’s alimony award to the wife essentially equalized the incomes of both spouses, meaning that each spouse had an equal ability to pay and, as a result, the husband should not be required to pay his wife’s attorneys’ fees and costs.

The decision came in the case of R.H. (husband) and H.H. (wife), who decided to divorce after 36 years of marriage. At the time of the couple’s divorce trial, the husband’s annual income was $89,000, and the wife’s was $39,000. The trial court ordered the husband to pay the wife alimony in the amount of $2,100 per month for 12 years. The trial court also decided that the husband should pay the wife another $6,000 for her attorneys’ fees and costs.
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