Divorce Lawyers New York - Recent Family Law Decisons (14)
RECENT FAMILY LAW DECISIONS (14)
Termination
For cases discussing termination of alimony.
Although a complete termination of alimony to the plaintiff was an abuse of the trial court’s discretion, the continued payment of $16,000 a year to a woman of the plaintiff’s means, after her brief marriage to the defendant, was not justified.
The trial court did not err in its judgment that plaintiff, by using the $1,000 in additional payments awarded to her as a condition to termination of alimony, could make herself employable either by undergoing surgery on her feet or by obtaining additional education, and that defendant’s remarriage, and the birth of a child from the new marriage, constituted substantial change of circumstances justifying termination of alimony.
Similar prior provision allowing the court to make reasonable and proper alterations in its alimony requirement also vested the court with ample power to declare the termination al all alimony upon the occurrence of facts reasonably justifying such a declaration.
Absent unequivocal language that the court intended a spouse’s heirs to be bound by its alimony decree, the alimony obligation terminated at paying spouse’s death.
Alimony
The section required that the court look to the former Divorce Act to determine whether a decree entered in 1975 which incorporated a property settlement agreement waiving alimony could be modified to add an alimony provision, under which the trial judge had no authority to modify the decree by adding an alimony provision.
Effective Date
Any proceedings commenced subsequent to the effective date of subsection (b) of this section to modify alimony or maintenance are governed by its provision.
Reimbursement of Fees
Trial court had subject matter jurisdiction over wife’s petition under the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution Act; wife was not seeking modification of property provisions of the supplemental order to the dissolution judgment in filing a petition (1) to have former husband held in contempt for failure to pay debt assigned to him and (2) to be reimbursed for legal fees incurred defending herself from a lawsuit on that debt.
In General
750 ILCS 5/510 evidences the legislature’s intent to allow a court to adjust a marital settlement agreement by entering a qualified domestic relations order that ensures the equitable distribution of money in a retirement account which belongs to a spouse who has not met his or her support obligations under the settlement agreement to a spouse who has not been paid.
Computation
The trial court’s reliance on a retroactive application when computing support arrearage created error because trial court could not provide for reduction in father’s support payments.
