IN RE THE MARRIAGE OF ROSE E. STONE, APPELLANT/CROSS-APPELLEE,
v.
HARRY C. STONE, APPELLEE/CROSS-APPELLANT
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The appellate court held that the trial judge erred in modifying the alimony award to an insufficient amount given the former wife's needs and the former husband's ability to pay.
[1] A substantial change in circumstances regarding the needs of a former spouse and the ability of the other former spouse to provide support may warrant modification of ali…
[2] A trial court errs in setting an alimony amount that is demonstrably insufficient to meet the proven needs of a disabled former spouse when the other former spouse has th…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceThe former wife, disabled and unable to work due to severe mental health issues, required $335.00 per week for basic needs, while the former husband, …
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DAUKSCH, Judge.
This is an appeal from an order modifying a judgment in a marriage dissolution case.
Upon a review of the evidence in the case we must conclude the trial judge erred in increasing the alimony to only $150.00 per week. All the evidence shows the disabled former wife needs at least $335.00 to maintain herself and that the former husband is well able to provide that amount. There has been a substantial change in circumstances in both the needs of the former wife and the ability of the former husband to assist in providing those needs.
At the time of the hearing, and for a while before that, the wife was unable to work, has been very ill and unable to receive any real assistance except from her former husband, The former husband, a physician, earns in excess of $100,000 per year and enjoys a lifestyle the exact opposite of his former wife’s. Since the reduction in her income because their children came of age, she has been reduced to a life of virtual poverty; living in a small room with no cooking facilities, walking around and “... healing my head from adverse medication I have received in the past.” She has no job, cannot get one because she is not “capable to function.” She has been hospitalized intermittently over the past years, has been diagnosed as acutely psychotic, very paranoid, chronically schizophrenic, and in need of medical attention.
All the evidence shows she has been reduced to a sub-standard lifestyle with little hope for ordinary comforts and unable to provide for herself. Her former husband unquestionably has the ability to help and certainly the duty to do so. While our society has the duty and custom of taking care of the less fortunate amongst us, it is the family which must first do its share. A former husband does not lose that obligation unless totally relieved of it by the court.
The order is reversed and this cause remanded for entry of an appropriate order requiring payment of $335.00 per week permanent alimony.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
FRANK D. UPCHURCH, and SHARP, JJ., concur.
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Laurenzo v. Achilles Michael Laurenzo, 522 So. 2d 1065 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988)…DCA 1985). Because the former wife’s modestly stated needs are $1,700, and the husband’s substantial assets are sufficient to meet those needs, the modification, which is inadequate to satisfy those specific needs, must be reversed. Stone v. Stone, 462 So. 2d 838 (Fla. 5th DCA 1985) (modification increasing alimony to only $150 per week requires reversal where former husband has the ability to meet former wife’s stated needs of $335 per week). The final order is reversed with instructions to grant the forme…