RANDALL ALLEN HICKS, APPELLANT,
v.
JUDY ANN HICKS, APPELLEE

Fla. 5th DCA | 1995-05-12
No. 94-1994
PETERSON and THOMPSON, JJ., concur.
654 So. 2d 654 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fifth District (1995) Positive Treatment
Cited by 8 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Synopsis

Husband appeals a final judgment dissolving his marriage, challenging the trial court's refusal to award him child support as primary residential parent, the spousal support provisions, and the distribution of his non-vested pension. The appellate court affirmed most of the judgment but reversed and remanded on the spousal support and pension valuation issues due to insufficient findings of fact and inadequate valuation evidence.


Holding

The court affirmed the child support denial as within the trial court's discretion given husband's disclaimer and wife's modest income. However, the court reversed the spousal support provisions and pension distribution due to lack of requisite findings of fact and competent valuation evidence, and remanded for a further hearing to determine the non-vested pension's value and establish proper factual findings supporting the support award.


Headnotes

[1] A court may decline to award child support if the custodial parent expressly disclaims any desire for support and the non-custodial parent's income is modest, making chil…

[2] A final judgment dissolving a marriage must contain requisite findings of fact to enable appellate review of spousal support provisions.

Previewing 2 of 6 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

Key Quotes

“We do agree with husband, however, that the final judgment is deficient in that it lacks the requisite findings of fact that would enable this court to determine whether the support provisions of the final judgment are supported by the record.”

Establishes the appellate standard requiring findings of fact to support support awards and enable appellate review.

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

Husband and wife were dissolving their marriage. Husband was the primary residential parent but expressly disclaimed any desire to receive child suppo…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
GRIFFIN, Judge.

GRIFFIN, Judge.

Randall Allen Hicks [“husband”] appeals the lower court’s final judgment dissolving his marriage to Judy Ann Hicks [“wife”]. Husband complains of the lower court’s failure to award child support to husband as primary residential parent, the provisions of the final judgment relating to spousal support and the lower court’s order distributing one-half of the amount of husband’s pension fund balance to wife.

First, as for the lower court’s refusal to require wife to contribute to child support, it is manifest from the record that the court did this for two reasons. First, husband expressly disclaimed any desire to receive child support from wife. Also, the lower court evidently concluded that, given the modest amount of wife’s income, it was within the court’s discretion under section 61.16(ll)(k) not to require child support since doing so would only necessitate a concomitant increase in spousal support paid by husband to wife.

We do agree with husband, however, that the final judgment is deficient in that it lacks the requisite findings of fact that would enable this court to determine whether the support provisions of the final judgment are supported by the record. Kennedy v. Kennedy, 622 So. 2d 1033 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993), review granted, 634 So. 2d 625 (Fla.), decision disapproved on other grounds and review dismissed, 641 So. 2d 408 (Fla.1994).

Husband was ordered to pay $300 per month alimony to wife. Although wife’s need is apparent, husband’s ability to pay is not. Without the requisite finding of fact, it is impossible to tell if the amount awarded exceeded the court’s discretion. Similarly, the lower court ordered husband to maintain a policy of life insurance to secure the alimony even though there is no evidence in this record to indicate how much the premium for such insurance would be, and, again, husband’s ability to pay is an issue.1 Similarly, husband is ordered to provide health and dental insurance for former wife “consistent with that which is currently offered to the employees of the Lake County Sheriffs Department” for a minimum of one year or until former wife can obtain “reasonable insurance coverage” through her employer. Because of the lack of any evidence in the record concerning these charges, and because of the lack of any findings, we cannot determine whether this overall scheme of spousal support is within husband’s means.

Finally, husband complains that wife was awarded one-half of the amount of the “Former Husband’s pension fund balance as accumulated through his employment with the Lake County Sheriffs Department, paid through the date of the final judgment.”2 Husband is not vested in the pension and the only evidence adduced below of its value as a marital asset was a representation concerning the amount contributed by husband’s employer, based on a telephone inquiry.

On appeal, husband correctly urges that this was error, although not entirely the lower court’s fault.

First of all, counsel for husband failed to raise any of the valuation arguments he raises on appeal; although he did, at least, balk at simply accepting the telephone valuation.

Moreover, the lower court cannot arrive at a valuation of a pension asset unless it is provided with competent evidence that will allow it to do so. On remand, the court shall conduct a further hearing to determine the value of the non-vested pension as of the date of the dissolution and shall include the amount determined to be the value of the wife’s share on the face of the final judgment.

In all other respects, the final judgment is affirmed.

AFFIRMED in part; REVERSED IN PART; and REMANDED.

PETERSON and THOMPSON, JJ., concur. . The record suggests that husband presently has a policy of life insurance through his employment as a Lake County Deputy Sheriff but there is no indication how well this life insurance corresponds to what the court has ordered him to provide.

. No dollar amount is stated.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Rykiel v. Rykiel, 795 So. 2d 90 (Fla. 5th DCA 2000)
    …evidence of the cost, availability and financial impact upon the payor spouse, which is a prerequisite to such an award. Schere v. Schere, 645 So. 2d 21 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994); Zimmerman v. Zimmerman, 755 So. 2d 730 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000); Hicks v. Hicks, 654 So. 2d 654 (Fla. 5th DCA 1995). REVERSED AND REMANDED for a new trial. PETERSON, J., and POWELL, R. W., Associate Judge, concur.…
  • Knight v. Knight, 746 So. 2d 1117 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999)
    …30(3). Finally, we agree with the husband that the trial court erred in ordering him to maintain a life insurance policy to secure the child support award without having evidence of the existence of a policy or the cost thereof. See Hicks v. Hicks, 654 So. 2d 654, 655 (Fla. 5th DCA 1995); Kremer v. Kremer, 595 So. 2d 214, 218 (Fla. 2d DCA 1992). The husband is fifty years old and has recently had open heart and back surgery. Whether he can secure affordable life insurance is questionable. We therefore revers…
  • Zimmerman v. Zimmerman, 755 So. 2d 730 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000)
    …Kremer, 595 So. 2d 214, 218 (Fla. 2d DCA 1992). The record before us contains no evidence of the cost of this insurance or a finding that the appellant had the ability to pay. See Milo v. Milo, 718 So. 2d 343, 345 (Fla. 2d DCA 1998); Hicks v. Hicks, 654 So. 2d 654 (Fla. 5th DCA 1995). Further, as the parties acknowledged at oral argument, the appellee will be entitled to survivor benefits from the appellant’s military retirement in the event of his death. On remand, the trial court should consider this resour…

Previewing 3 of 4 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw