Key Legal Defects of SB668 Family Law/Alimony "Reform" Bill That Demand a VETO and TASK FORCE

 

 

FAMILY LAW/ALIMONY "REFORM" BILL SB668 - KEY LEGAL DEFECTS THAT DEMAND A

GOV. SCOTT VETO AND TASK FORCE

 

(Expert Analysis and Conclusions)

 

·         Numerous published studies reflect that divorce is a poverty creating event for women and children (97% of alimony and the large majority of child support recipients are women); Single divorced older women are persistently the largest demographic living in poverty in the U.S.

 http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_bills/2016/03/how_divorce_exacerbates_the_retirement_crisis_especially_if_you_re_a_woman.html
 

·         Lack of substantiation for bill's expansive rewrite of existing statutes, bill's arbitrary calculators/guideline presumptions, and bill's sweeping unstudied reform and public policy shift.

 

o     Alimony payors receive at least equal income as recipients as F.S. Section 61.08(9) precludes court from awarding payors less than half of income earned barring exceptional circumstances.  Florida statute already provides for shared equal legal custody while child time sharing/splitting correctly remains foremost in the “best interest of the child."

 

·         Bill is retroactive as women who are in traditional marriages and/or whom have justifiably relied on alimony will be deprived by the changes in the law upon divorce. Bill substantially ‘codifies' multiple new unreasonable triggers to readily open the door for modification of prior settled awards, court orders and contractual agreements -- any modification then retroactively requires the courts to apply the bill’s new lowered standards. 

 

Even SB668's own Senate Staff Analysis Report questions the unconstitutionality of the bill's retroactive application to prior legal contractual marriage settlement agreements.

 

·         Bill creates a statutory Public Policy mandate of "premised" equal 50/50 child timesharing with the best interests of the child secondary.  This can only be overcome through costly litigation.  This will be the most stringent , 'presumption-like' application of 50/50 child time sharing in the nation, setting an unsubstantiated national precedent.  Florida and National Family Law experts note:
 

“This bill gives equally split timesharing to both parents no matter if it is in the children’s best interest of not – a struggling addict is presumed to be equally able to care for their child.  Since a judge is commanded (via the word 'shall') to apply this 50/50 premise as a starting point -- a wed or even never-wed parent will have to enter into costly litigation with expensive third-party evidence to protect an at risk infant or child.  There is also a constitutional issue with Separation of Powers when the Legislature commands the Judiciary to adopt an unsubstantiated and not widely accepted 'premise'.”

 

·         Bill has NO economic impact study accurately reflecting the burden on government budgets and social services of the legislation. (Florida Legislators ignoring the impact on state social services, entitlement programs and the legal system).  Cursory Senate and House Bill Staff Analyses are replete with misrepresentations, missing information and inaccuracies regarding budget impact, economic, social-welfare and detrimental legal consequences.

 

·         Alimony exists to promote marriage and its explicit/implicit promises and partnership by equitably supporting a spouse’s contribution to the marriage when giving up jobs or raising children.  Over 30% of all women and nearly 40% of Hispanic women are stay-at-home mothers -- Over 52% of whom have children under the age of 5. (PEW Research Study 2014).

 

o   Downstream impact on Child Support:  Alimony is a key input into the Florida Child Support Calculator and presumed to be income available for the recipient to assist in the support of minor children as well as themselves.

 

·         Persons wanting exception from public policy of divorce may negotiate alternative terms in a bargained for contractual arrangement of a Prenuptial Agreement.

 

·         Bill eliminates all existing statutory forms of alimony except for fixed-term, limited duration regardless of party’s economic needs and ability to pay.  Then, alimony term lengths (durations) are arbitrary and unreasonably short bearing no relationship to actual economic need and ability to continue to pay support. (The economic effects can be permanent—why only as little as 25% to 75% of length of marriage support durations even for long-term marriages?)

 

 

·         Bill's alimony/support guidelines yield amounts that are arbitrary, unsubstantiated and unreasonably low, requiring expensive litigation to overcome. (Barely reaches 40% taxable in a 20+ year marriage which is not economic parity, especially as alimony is taxed as income to recipient and a tax write-off for the payor.  Can only reach a somewhat more equalizing 50% taxable in a 20+ year marriage IF a stringent, limited list of concurrent criteria are successfully litigated into evidence.) Why is the woman’s contribution worth so much less than the primary wage earners?

 

·         How is a woman in a 15-20 year marriage who has no skills to survive when her husband earns $10,000 a month gross and she earns nothing on $1500 to $2000 a month (especially if rotating custody and the father has equal timesharing economically "premised" but doesn’t actually exercise the timesharing)?

 

·         Even minimal increases of income of recipient spouse over any period of time justifies and triggers a modification without any consideration of inflation -- any modification then retroactively requires the application of the bill’s new lowered standards.

 

·         Bill gives the obligor a termination of alimony presumption upon reaching age 65 and retirement no matter the economic effect on the recipient spouse.  This is also retroactively applicable, regardless of whether the recipient contractually gave up retirement assets in order to secure a contractually assured long-term stream of support.

 

·         No recognition that Florida alimony recipients per Fl. Supreme Court ruling in Mallard v. Mallard are disallowed to have any savings component.  What is to economically happen to recipients when obliger retires yet recipient has been legally disallowed from accumulating their own retirement savings safety net?

 

·         How does the recipient ever retire given that they will have no savings, no support and no retraining given limited sums received as alimony for a limited, fixed duration?

 

·         The court is obligated to suspend alimony upon obligor’s mere filing of a petition for modification of alimony and before the completion of the court review; this is legally unjust and potentially unconstitutional.

 

·         Respondent to modification of alimony petition (the recipient) is penalized by increased risk to pay the obligor’s attorney’s fees and costs if trial court arbitrarily determines that they “unreasonably defended” themselves against the petition;  This is an unreasonably high penalty and counter to long-standing statute governing the rights to equitable representation and defense.

 

·         Potential income and requirements for employment are limited to “local” available job and only “near residence”—What happens when industry moves and spouse refuses to move with the prior job?  What happens when spouse intentionally moves to low employment areas to advert paying court ordered or contractual alimony and child support?

 

·         Bill provides no ($0) alimony (not even bridge the gap) in a 2 year marriage even if a spouse has given up a job, has become disabled, has become the primary caretaker of a disabled child or is economically impacted by the marital decision to raise children.

 

·         Bill makes income and assets of  obligor's subsequent spouse not discoverable by recipient and non-admissible in modification action to prove subsequent spouse supports obligor spouse to manipulate income.  Constitutional issues likely exists with these undue limits on recipient's rights to discovery and admission of critical evidence to show that obligor and subsequent spouse are manipulating obligor's reported income, needs and ability to pay.

 

According to one of Florida’s most esteemed retired Family Law Judges:

“This bill dehumanizes the uniqueness of families and people. Children become a ploy instead of a person.  A passage of this bill and adoption into law disrespects women and cheats children.”

 

 

GOV. SCOTT PLEASE DON'T IGNORE THE  FACTS AND DEFECTS OF THIS ILL-CONCEIVED BILL.  VETO SB668 AND FORM A PROPER EXPERT TASK FORCE TODAY!