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When a couple divorces, one of the integral elements of property division is separating marital assets from non-marital ones. A recent 4th District Court of Appeal ruling highlights that an asset’s origin at the time the couple marries is not the only criterion for ascertaining its classification. In the Jordan case, the wife’s work improving an asset, and the couple’s use of the asset’s proceeds for marital benefits, converted the asset from non-marital to marital.

A chiropractor and his wife married in 1992. The husband conducted his practice in an office building he owned separately, as his parents had deeded it to him before he married. However, while the couple was married, the wife coordinated and performed several significant renovations and improvements to the building. Also during the marriage, the husband transferred title of the building to a corporate entity he created. The couple eventually sold the building, purchasing and then selling a salon. Over the years, the couple used funds from the corporation to pay their household and living expenses.

The couple filed for divorce in 2011. The trial court adopted the wife’s proposed judgment, and the husband appealed. On the matter of the office building and corporation assets, the court determined that the trial court correctly found it to be a marital asset. The husband’s professional building clearly was a non-marital asset when the couple had married. However, the wife’s work on the building was sufficient to convert it from a non-marital asset to a marital one. The wife was “instrumental” in the completion of “vast improvements …, which included replacing walls, installing new flooring, adding columns and a flag pole to the front, modifying lighting and other electrical work, adding an additional parking lot, replacing the roof, and putting in new doors and windows,” the court pointed out. The amount of effort the wife expended on the office building went far beyond mere maintenance, but rather, provided substantial enhancement in the asset’s value.
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A recent court of appeals decision put a screeching halt to a mother’s attempt to relocate her daughter from central Florida to Indiana. The 5th District Court of Appeal’s ruling affirmed a lower court’s decision that the move was not in the daughter’s best interests, concluding that the mother was motivated by a desire to maintain physical distance between the daughter and the father, and to block contact between the two.

This couple divorced in 2008 in California, and the court approved a marital settlement agreement that included a 50-50 time-sharing arrangement for the couple’s one daughter. The mother and the daughter soon moved to central Florida. In an effort to be closer to his daughter, the father moved to Orlando in the summer of 2010.

Just three months later, the mother abruptly relocated her family, including the daughter, to Indiana, where the mother’s husband had received a job offer. The father asked the court to order the return of his daughter. After a failed telephonic mediation, the mother petitioned the court to approve the relocation to Indiana.
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A father’s attempt to avail himself to statutorily-dictated child support modification failed due to an earlier decision the man made, which ultimately proved costly. The man had previously consented to a marital settlement agreement that contained a waiver of his right to seek a child support modification based upon the parents’ time-sharing schedule, according to the Second District Court of Appeal. The father’s unfavorable decision spotlights the extreme importance of understanding all the ramifications of the terms of a settlement agreement.

Two years after a couple divorced in 2003, the couple created a supplement to their marital settlement agreement that altered the husband’s child support and alimony payments, and specifically stated that the agreement’s visitation arrangements could not be construed as the children’s spending 40% of their time with the father. This percentage was important to clarify, because Section 61.30(11)(b)(10) of the Florida Statutes allows a parent to seek a modification of his child support obligation if his children spend 40% or more of their overnights with him.

In 2012, the father requested a downward adjustment in his child support based upon the alleged fact that the children spent 42% of their time with him. The mother argued that, under the terms of the supplemental settlement agreement, the father waived his right to seek such a reduction.
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A Third District Court of Appeal case from earlier this month marked a reversal of course for that court with regard to the rules regarding cohabitating couples and alimony modification. In the court’s latest ruling, it decided that, even though an ex-wife received virtually no financial support from her cohabitating boyfriend, a trial court was nevertheless justified in using that relationship as the basis for lowering the ex-husband’s monthly alimony obligation.

The case centered upon the aftermath of a divorce following which the ex-husband had paid his ex-wife alimony since the couple’s divorce in 2005. In 2009, the ex-wife boyfriend moved in with her. The ex-husband sought to reduce his alimony based upon the cohabitation relationship, and the trial court dropped his alimony obligation from $4,200 per month to $3,500.

The ex-wife appealed. The Third DCA originally agreed with the wife, but reconsidered its opinion and upheld the trial court ruling. The court ultimately decided that the statutes were clear in allowing the trial court to make the reduction based upon the change in circumstances brought about by the cohabitation.
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In a groundbreaking decision earlier this month, a sharply divided Florida Supreme Court concluded that a woman who donated her eggs to her lesbian partner so that the couple could have, and raise, a child together possesses a fundamental constitutional right to parent the child. In the process, the court declared unconstitutional a statute that created an automatic waiver of the parental rights of all reproductive material donors, concluding that the statute, as applied to the lesbian egg donor, violated her Due Process rights.

The case involved the custody of the daughter of a lesbian couple. In 2003, the couple set about to have a child. They used one partner’s egg, but the other partner carried and delivered the child. The couple gave birth to the daughter in January 2004. Two years later, though, the relationship failed and the birth mother cut off all contact in December 2007.

The other partner, known in the court documents as “T.M.H.,” filed a legal action to establish her parental rights to the daughter. The birth mother challenged the action, arguing that Florida law afforded T.M.H. no parental rights and that, by signing an “informed consent” form, T.M.H. had surrendered all parental rights. The trial court ruled in favor of the birth mother, but the 5th District Court of Appeal reversed, concluding that the Florida Statute governing donated reproductive material was unconstitutional as applied to T.M.H.
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Just three short months after Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade’s divorce became final, a Florida appeals court was again called upon to enter a decision in the half-decade long legal contest. The 3d District Court of Appeal overturned a trial court’s order requiring the NBA star’s ex-wife to undergo a mental evaluation and also removed the trial court judge from the case, citing his denial of the “most basic right of due process” to the ex-wife, Siohvaughn Funches.

Many of the facts of Wade’s ill-fated marriage are well-known by now. Wade and Funches married in 2002, had two sons, and filed for divorce in 2007. The divorce proceeding turned into a marathon affair, becoming final only three months ago. In the property settlement, Wade agreed to pay Funches $25,000 in alimony, with another $10,000 in travel and living expenses. The basketball star also agreed to pay Funches’ mortgage and gave her the use of four cars.

This outcome apparently displeased the ex-wife, as Funches took to the streets of her hometown of Chicago. Funches stages a public protest claiming that the divorce had left her “on the streets.” Wade’s legal team fired back, returning to court to argue that Funches’ protest demonstrated her mental instability and dangerousness and requested that the court order a psychological evaluation of the woman and reduce her contact with the boys. Trial court judge Antonio Marin ordered the evaluation.
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One of the central underlying concepts of divorce and marital property settlement is something called equitable distribution. Equitable distribution, which is required by the Florida Statutes, means that each spouse should receive a fair portion of the marital estate, and each should share in both the marital assets and the marital liabilities. In a recent case, the 4th DCA rejected a trial court’s division of a 401(k) because it unfairly shared the account proceeds between both parties without similarly sharing the financial obligation for the outstanding account loan the couple took out during the marriage.

In 2011, a couple underwent mediation to reach an agreement regarding distribution of their property as part of their divorce. In addressing the husband’s 401(k) account with his employer, the couple agreed that the wife would receive one-half of the “the amount accumulated from the date of the marriage through January 1, 2008.” The agreement also stated that “loans and [withdrawals] taken during the marriage and not repaid will be taken into account for distribution purposes.”

The Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) the trial court entered, however, stated that the wife’s distribution would “not be reduced by the value of outstanding loans.” As a result, the wife received a payment of $47,505, while the husband’s remaining balance, which factored in an outstanding loan in excess of $30,000, stood at less than $13,700.
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With marital settlement agreements, much like any other form of contract, even the smallest of details can become extremely important. A case recently decided by Florida’s First District Court of Appeal highlights this point. In a recent case, the court concluded that an ex-wife could receive a portion of the 2010 value of her ex-husband’s 401(k) and Army pension, even though the couple divorced in 1994. The court ruled that, if the couple did not intend the wife to share in the account’s gains or losses, the agreement should have awarded her a fixed amount, not a portion of the account.

This couple ended their 20-year marriage in 1994. The divorce decree incorporated the couple’s marital settlement agreement, which they reached three months earlier. That agreement stated that the wife received 10/23 of the husband’s Army pension and half of his 401(k) “as of July 24, 1993”. The agreement called for entry of QDROs (special court orders governing pension and retirement funds) regarding the accounts, but the couple delayed for several years.

The wife finally filed for entry of the QDROs in 2010. The trial court awarded the wife $18,111 from the 401(k) and $18,922, plus $401 per month, from the Army pension. The trial court calculated these amounts based upon the 1993 values of each account.
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On September 5th, the public got even more insight into the now very public life of George Zimmerman (acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin) when his soon-to-be ex-wife filed divorce papers in Seminole County. In August, Shellie Zimmerman was found guilty of perjury and ended up with probation, plus 100 hours community service for her false statements regarding the couple’s finances during George’s bail hearings.

Sheila explained that the couple has been under intense scrutiny from “both sides” and identified the weakness of their marriage as two people fighting their own struggles to be heard by the other. She described their lives around the time of the trial and after as “living like gypsies” for security purposes with constant “babysitter” bodyguards looming over them.

The Zimmerman divorce, despite already being filed, likely hit a snag when on September 9th, Lake Mary police detained Zimmerman for a domestic dispute incident, which was resulted in a panicked 911 call by Sheila claiming George was threatening her and her father with physical violence and a gun. She further alleged George punched her father in the face during the confrontation. Sheila ultimately withdrew some of her statements, and charges were dropped against George.
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A recent case, involving a Pennsylvania man and his biological child living in Florida, demonstrated the significant differences that sometimes exist between science and the law. A Florida appeals court both denied the biological father’s effort to litigate his custody dispute in his home state, and foreclosed his efforts to make a claim anywhere regarding custody of the child. The man’s resounding defeat resulted from several shortcomings, including his flouting custody orders and, in particular, his lack of legal relationship to the child because the mother was married to another man at the time of the child’s birth.

The case revolved around a child born to a couple in 2004. The child’s birth certificate listed the husband as the father; however, he was not the father. The child was the product of the mother’s relationship with another man. The child resided with the maternal grandmother from birth. The mother died in 2008, still married to the husband. After the mother’s death, the grandmother sought custody and the husband consented. At this point, the father sought to intervene and asked the court to declare him the child’s father and award him custody. The trial court concluded that the husband had severed his parental rights by abandoning the child, declared the biological father the father and awarded him custody.

Following a reversal of the ruling by the 1st District Court of Appeal, the grandmother re-obtained legal custody. The father, however, refused to hand over the child, and the child remained in his physical custody for a 12 month period during which he had no legal rights regarding the child.
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