Articles Posted in Divorce

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In the most recent case involving same-sex couples who married in other states and seek to divorce in Florida, the 2d District Court of Appeal concluded that a southwest Florida trial court was wrong to dismiss a woman’s dissolution of marriage petition. The court ruling decided that, under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Florida courts should entertain same-sex spouses’ divorce petitions just as they would hear a petition for dissolution filed by a heterosexual spouse who married in another state.

This case involved Danielle and Krista Brandon-Thomas, who married in Massachusetts in the fall of 2012. Shortly thereafter, the couple moved to Florida, but the marriage did not last. Just a year after their wedding, Danielle filed for divorce in Lee County. Krista, in a position supposed by the Florida Attorney General, asked the trial court to throw out the case, arguing that Florida law did not recognize same-sex marriages and Florida courts had no power to dissolve that which, under the terms of the Florida Statutes, never existed.
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Sometimes, one of the most challenging aspects in a marital settlement arrangement, other than child custody, is deciding what to do with the marital home. In many cases, both spouses jointly own the property, but only one spouse still lives in the marital home and that spouse desires not to move. One way to deal with such a situation is to give the spouse desiring to stay an opportunity to buy out that spouse’s one-half ownership of the home. One example of this situation was a case recently decided by the 4th District Court of Appeal.

The case involved the 2013 divorce of a Broward County couple. The couple reached an agreement, which the trial court approved, regarding the marital home. That agreement called for putting the house up for sale, but it also gave the husband a right of first refusal, meaning that, once an offer was received on the home, the husband had the right to match the offer and purchase the property himself, as long as he paid the wife cash.
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A Florida trial court’s award of alimony to a wife was thrown out recently by the 2d District Court of Appeal for being too low. The appeals court concluded that the trial court’s outcome, if put into action, would leave too great a disparity between the ex-spouses and would force the wife into a lifestyle below that which she enjoyed during the couple’s marriage.

A couple decided to end their 28-year marriage in 2011. Although the wife had a master’s degree and had been the primary earner through much of the marriage, her job at the time of the divorce paid only $29,000 annually. The husband was making $280,000 per year by 2011.
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In one recent Florida divorce, a trial court’s failure to give the husband a meaningful opportunity to be heard in the case, as well as the court’s improper shifting of the burden of proof from the wife to the husband regarding whether Scotland law or Florida law should govern the divorce, forced the 5th District Court of Appeal to reverse the trial court and send the case back for a new trial.

Before the former couple married in Scotland, they executed a “Minute of Agreement,” which is the approximate equivalent of a prenuptial agreement. The couple’s agreement stated that, if they divorced, the court deciding the case should use Scottish law.
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A Christmas Eve ruling from the Third District Court of Appeal might have appeared to be a cause for cheer among those who support the state’s ban on same-sex marriages, but a careful reading provides a different perspective. The lesbian couple who litigated the matter lost their case largely on procedural grounds, since there were no issues in dispute between them, meaning that there was no “controversy” for the court to resolve.

While the factual background of O. and S.’s same-sex divorce case was not especially unique, the legal component was. Married in Iowa in 2009, the couple moved to Florida some time later. By 2012, the couple opted to go their separate ways, with O. filing for divorce.
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A couple’s out-of-state divorce order was the starting point of multistate legal battles spanning more than a decade. The battle between the two former spouses highlights some of the challenges that occur when parties to a divorce move away from the state that originally handled their case. The 4th District Court of Appeal upheld a dismissal of a husband’s Florida legal action related to the divorce because the couple’s previous home state of New Jersey was actually the proper place to bring his claims.

The long-running contest began after a New Jersey court issued an order granting a divorce to a couple, and giving the wife awards for unpaid alimony and child support. The court also ordered that certain pieces of the husband’s property be placed into a trust and gave the wife the authority to sell those assets in the trust. If necessary, the wife had the power to satisfy the child support and alimony debts from the sale of the husband’s trust assets.
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A Broward Circuit Judge’s order on December 17 granted to a South Florida art dealer something she sought for more than a year: a divorce. What made the judge’s in-court ruling groundbreaking was that the woman sought a divorce from her lesbian partner, with whom she had entered into a civil union in 2002. The ruling represents the first time a Florida court has issued a divorce to a same-sex couple and comes on the heels of a December 8 ruling, issued in the same case, declaring Florida’s ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional and unenforceable, the Miami Herald reported.

The former couple entered into a civil union in Vermont 12 years ago. In 2010, one partner allegedly became unfaithful and, shortly thereafter, disappeared. In order for the other partner to marry her new partner, she needed to obtain a divorce. In a similar case involving a Tampa couple, the lesbian couple married in Massachusetts but could not get a Massachusetts divorce because neither was a resident there by the time they decided to part ways. In the present case, she could not obtain a Vermont dissolution because Vermont law requires a signed affidavit from her partner, and she no longer knew the partner’s whereabouts.
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When faced with the possibility of awarding alimony, courts have a variety of options. The appropriate option may depend on various factors, including how long you were married. Whether you are the spouse paying alimony or the one receiving alimony, it is very important to understand what the law does (and does not) allow courts to do when it comes to an alimony award. Two Florida appeals court decisions from this year serve as examples of these limitations.

In a very recent decision, Diaz v. Diaz, the 3d District Court of Appeal ruled in favor of a husband’s appeal and overturned a trial court’s ruling with regard to the husband’s payment of alimony. The trial court in that case ordered the husband to pay the wife durational (temporary) alimony each month for 48 months. The flaw with this award was that the couple’s marriage had only lasted for a little more than three years (40 months.) Section 61.08(7) of the Florida Statutes says that durational alimony “may not be modified except under exceptional circumstances and may not exceed the length of the marriage.”
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Sometimes, courts decide to award alimony to one spouse in a divorce based on that spouse having a much smaller income than the other spouse. The 2d District Court of Appeal received a case like this and reversed the trial court’s ruling requiring the husband to pay alimony. That’s because evidence of income disparity alone is not enough to justify an alimony award. The law requires proof of the recipient spouse’s need and the payor spouse’s ability to pay. The evidence in the case showed the husband did not have the ability to pay, so awarding alimony was erroneous.

M’s family law case was one similar to many people’s situations. While married, M and his now-former wife, T, had a child. They also reportedly racked up a considerable amount of debt, including credit card balances exceeding $10,000. Eventually, the couple decided to dissolve their marriage. By the time they split up, each spouse was  in a very problematic financial state, since each had debt obligations allegedly exceeding their incomes.
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A woman who took her child and fled an allegedly abusive husband was unable to successfully move her divorce and child custody case to a court in her new home in South Florida. The 1st District Court of Appeal, while openly expressing sympathy for the woman’s difficult position, threw out an order transferring the case from Tallahassee to Miami-Dade County because, when the original divorce petition was filed, the couple had only lived in Tallahassee, making that location the only permissible place where the case could be heard.

The case regarded the difficult and allegedly violent breakup of the marriage of KM (husband) and TM (wife). The husband filed for divorce in September 2013 in Tallahassee, where the couple was living with their child. Shortly thereafter, a dispute reportedly erupted between the couple, and the husband allegedly punched the wife several times. The wife left Tallahassee and went to stay with her mother in Miami. The wife obtained a domestic violence injunction against the husband from a court in Miami-Dade County.
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