HOWARD KASS, APPELLANT,
v.
JENNIFER KASS, APPELLEE
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In this Florida dissolution of marriage case, the appellate court affirmed the trial court's award of temporary attorney's fees, accounting fees, and expert witness fees to the wife. The court rejected the husband's challenge to including fees for related litigation, finding the cases sufficiently intertwined with the dissolution proceeding to justify the award.
The court affirmed the $64,700 award of temporary attorney's fees, along with $3,950 in accounting fees and $1,250 in expert witness fees. The trial court properly awarded fees for the companion lawsuits because they were sufficiently intertwined with the main dissolution proceeding and involved entities wholly-owned and controlled by the husband.
[1] A trial court may award attorney's fees for representation in related non-dissolution lawsuits if those suits are intertwined with the dissolution litigation and involve…
[2] An award of temporary attorney's fees is reasonable if it falls within the range of expert testimony and the paying spouse has incurred substantial attorney's fees.
Previewing 2 of 3 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“Generally, the trial court has no authority to award attorneys' fees in other suits involving a spouse's interests, which do not fall within the purview of section 61.16, Florida Statutes (1987).”
Establishes the general rule limiting attorney's fee awards in dissolution cases
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceHoward Kass and Jennifer Kass were involved in a dissolution of marriage proceeding in Florida. The wife had no assets or income of her own. The husba…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
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POLEN, Judge.
We affirm the trial court’s award of $64,-700 as a reasonable temporary attorney’s fee to the wife, along with accounting fees of $3,950 and an expert witness fee of $1,250. However, we write further to respond to some of the points raised by the husband/appellant, to avoid any possible misinterpretation in other cases, and to address our own concerns generated by this litigation.
Appellant’s second point on appeal questions the propriety of an award of attorneys’ fees for representation of the wife in the two “companion lawsuits,” one of which has been consolidated with the main dissolution proceeding. Generally, the trial court has no authority to award attorneys’ fees in other suits involving a spouse’s interests, which do not fall within the purview of section 61.16, Florida Statutes (1987). Here there was testimony, which the trial court noted in its final order, as to the services of S. Robert Zimmerman, Esq., and Richard Kirsch, Esq., as pertains to the “non-dissolution” lawsuits.
However, these non-Chapter 61 proceedings clearly involve entities which are wholly-owned and controlled by the husband, and are so intertwined with the dissolution litigation, that the trial court may have properly determined all three cases were part and parcel of the domestic strife begun in Kass v. Kass, circuit court case No. 87-30581 CS.
We find no error in the court’s ultimate award of $64,700 as reasonable temporary attorney’s fees in the dissolution action. This figure was within the perimeters of the expert witnesses’ testimony. In that the husband testified that he had incurred a liability of almost $87,000 in attorneys’ fees, we find no abuse of discretion for the trial court to award $64,700 as interim attorney’s fees to the wife, who has no assets or income of her own. Keister v. Keister, 458 So. 2d 32 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985).
This is not to say that this court is putting its imprimatur on the extent of litigation that we perceive from the record before us.
The record clearly demonstrates a case which, at least in this writer’s view, has been overlitigated to the point of absurdity, considering the length of the marriage and the issues involved. It may be a worn-out exercise in oversimplification for any court, be it trial court or appellate, to entreat parties to “resolve your differences and settle the case.” Nonetheless, we must hasten to point out to the parties that which they must surely already know; that if this litigation continues at its present pace, not only their entire marital estate, whatever that may be, but perhaps their parents’ estates as well, may be consumed by the cost of this litigation. Katz v. Katz, 505 So. 2d 25 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987).
DOWNEY and LETTS, JJ., concur.
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Bane v. Consuella Kathleen Bane, 775 So. 2d 938 (Fla. 2000)…19 So. 2d at 415. Cf. Fortner v. Fortner, 631 So. 2d 327, 328 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994) (award of fees was proper because even though bankruptcy proceeding was a separate action, it constituted an “enforcement” proceeding “under” chapter 61); Kass v. Kass, 560 So. 2d 293, 294 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990) (non-dissolution lawsuits were “so intertwined with the dissolution litigation” that they were “part and parcel of the domestic strife” and therefore the award of chapter 61 fees was not erroneous).4 In this case, the forme…
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Lewis v. Lewis, 689 So. 2d 1271 (Fla. 1st DCA 1997)…ding under this chapter, including ... appeals.” The instant ease involves a chapter 741 proceeding and not a chapter 61 proceeding. Chapter 741 contains no provision authorizing the award of attorney’s fees. [*1274] The wife relies on Kass v. Kass, 560 So. 2d 293 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990), and Fortner v. Fortner, 631 So. 2d 327 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994), for authority that the court may award attorney’s fees for a separate action which is intertwined with domestic litigation under chapter 61, Florida Statutes. We find bo…
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Fortner v. Gera M. Fortner, 631 So. 2d 327 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994)…action was an action merely to enforce legal rights between tenants in common concerning a dispute that arose after dissolution and was not an action under chapter 61 to enforce the unfulfilled terms of a divorce decree. In contrast, Kass v. Kass, 560 So. 2d 293 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990), involved attorney’s fees for civil litigation in conjunction with a pending divorce. The companion lawsuits to the divorce proceeding involved entities that were wholly-owned and controlled by the husband. Although the issues we…
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
- Marlin v. AVIS Rent A CAR Sys., Inc., 505 So. 2d 25 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987)
- Weddie Dale v. Landrum Temp. Servs. Inc., 458 So. 2d 32 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984)