MARIAN MARSHALL, APPELLANT,
v.
DAN MARSHALL, APPELLEE
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Wife entitled to permanent periodic alimony rather than lump sum alimony in dissolution of marriage where husband has retirement income security and wife's employment prospects are limited.
A wife in a dissolution of marriage is entitled to permanent periodic alimony rather than lump sum alimony when the husband has retirement income security and the wife's prospects for self-supporting employment are limited.
[1] In a dissolution of marriage, permanent periodic alimony rather than lump sum alimony is appropriate when the husband has retirement income security and the wife's prospe…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“Nil prospects to the contrary notwithstanding, if she should somehow blossom into a financially productive member of society and other material changes occur, the Husband can obtain a trial court review of the award.”
Court explaining that permanent periodic alimony can be modified if the wife's circumstances improve materially in the future.
In a seventeen-year marriage with few assets and relatively little money, the trial court awarded the wife child support and lump sum alimony, but the…
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LEE, J. CAIL, Associate Judge.
This is an appeal from a final judgment of dissolution of marriage. The Wife in this seventeen year marriage claims that, along with the child support and other awards made to her, she should have been granted permanent periodic alimony rather than lump sum alimony. We agree. We recognize that there were few assets and relatively little money in this marriage. Nonetheless, the Husband’s future security is assured, as least to a limited extent, by his retirement pay, which he may be able to supplement. The Wife’s chances to obtain self-supporting employment, although not impossible, appear more unlikely. Under all the circumstances of this case, it was error not to award the Wife permanent periodic alimony. Although it is not our usual function to set the amount of an award, in this case we hold that permanent periodic alimony of Two Hundred Dollars ($200.00) per month to the Wife is an equitable sum. As was said in Wilson v. Wilson, 279 So. 2d 893 (Fla. 4th DCA 1973), “Nil prospects to the contrary notwithstanding, if she should somehow blossom into a financially productive member of society and other material changes occur, the Husband can obtain a trial court review of the award.”
Accordingly, the judgment appealed from is modified by eliminating the award of lump sum alimony and inserting in its stead permanent periodic alimony in the sum of $200.00 per month. As so modified the judgment is affirmed.
DOWNEY, J., concurs.
LETTS, J., concurs specially with opinion.
LETTS, Judge,
specially concurring.
I think the majority has reached the correct result in this case, but I remain uneasy about what we do.
Commencing with Canakaris v. Canakaris, 382 So. 2d 1197 (Fla.1980), followed by Conner v. Conner, 439 So. 2d 887 (Fla.1983) and most recently by Kuvin v. Kuvin, 442 So. 2d 203 (Fla.1983) our Supreme Court has, at least arguably, put the District Courts on notice that the decisions of trial judges in domestic cases are all but irreversible. The statement in Canakaris that an abuse of discretion only occurs when “no reasonable man would take the view adopted by the trial court,” id. 1203, is chilling, but not necessarily dispositive, because any district court panel supposedly composed of three “reasonable” men can take the position that no reasonable man would have done what the unreasonable trial judge did. However, the statement in Conner that if one party or the other is “shortchanged [that] is an issue of fact and not one of law” and therefore within the trial court’s discretion is a horse of quite another color. The two sizable dictionaries in my office define “short-change” as the giving of less than the correct amount or cheating. If a trial judge awards an incorrect amount to the wife or cheats her, surely that is an abuse of discretion. I certainly hope so.
We have also substituted permanent periodic alimony for lump sum. Again I think we are correct based on the facts of this case because the “lump sum” here awarded was only $10,800 payable in monthly installments of $100 for 108 months.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
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Diffenderfer v. Diffenderfer, 491 So. 2d 265 (Fla. 1986)…court with little option but to utilize the pension benefits in calculating permanent periodic or rehabilitative alimony, we have no desire to disapprove those Florida decisions in which the court has done just that. See, e.g., Marshall v. Marshall, 445 So. 2d 706 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984); Higgins v. Higgins, 408 So. 2d 731 (Fla. 1st DCA), review denied, 417 So. 2d 329 (Fla.1982); Bradley v. Bradley, 385 So. 2d 101 (Fla. 5th DCA), review denied, 392 So. 2d 1392 (Fla.1980). Lest our observations here be misundersto…
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Carroll v. Carroll, 471 So. 2d 1358 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985)…n of the district courts by making the judgments of trial judges all but irreversible in domestic cases, as expressed by Judge Letts (whose views we shared, see Farkas v. Farkas, 452 So. 2d 963, 964 n. 1 (Fla. 3d DCA 1984)), in Marshall v. Marshall, 445 So. 2d 706, 707 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984) (Letts, J., specially concurring), and Marcoux v. Marcoux, 445 So. 2d 711, 713 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984) (Letts, J., dissenting in part), has been resolved by the supreme court in its holding in Marcoux v. Marcoux, 464 So. 2d 542,…
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Diffenderfer v. Diffenderfer, 456 So. 2d 1214 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984)…ony and direct that upon remand the trial judge [*1218] award the wife permanent periodic alimony-in an amount to be determined by the trial judge after considering the interests enunciated in Kuvin v. Kuvin, supra, at 205. Cf. Marshall v. Marshall, 445 So. 2d 706 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984) (that court modifying the trial court’s judgment by awarding permanent periodic alimony in lieu of lump sum alimony, after noting that the husband’s future security was assured by his retirement pay, while the wife’s chances to o…
Previewing 3 of 10 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- Canakaris v. Canakaris, 382 So. 2d 1197 (Fla. 1980)
- Kuvin v. Kuvin, 442 So. 2d 203 (Fla. 1983)
- Doyle Edward Conner v. Conner, 439 So. 2d 887 (Fla. 1983)
- Mazel & Broche, Inc. v. First Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass'n OF Miami, 279 So. 2d 893 (Fla. 3d DCA 1973)