T. CLAYTON JENKINS, APPELLANT,
v.
SONIA JENKINS, APPELLEE

Fla. 2d DCA | 2003-10-08
No. 2D02-3310
FULMER and STRINGER, JJ., Concur.
857 So. 2d 302 Florida District Court of Appeal, Second District (2003)

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Synopsis

T. Clayton Jenkins appeals a final judgment dissolving his marriage to Sonia Jenkins, challenging the amounts of alimony and child support he was ordered to pay and an award of attorney's fees to his wife. The appellate court reversed and remanded because the trial court failed to make adequate findings regarding Jenkins's income, which is essential for determining support obligations and attorney's fees.


Holding

The court held that the trial court erred by failing to include findings as to Mr. Jenkins's income at the time of the final hearing and that the final judgment's failure to include adequate income findings violated requirements for appellate review of alimony, child support, and attorney's fee awards. The supplemental findings subsequently filed by the trial court were confusing, conflicting, and unresponsive, making appellate review impossible.


Headnotes

[1] A circuit court must make sufficient findings of fact to permit appellate review of alimony, child support, and attorney's fee awards in a dissolution of marriage proceed…

[2] A determination of the parties' respective incomes is a critical finding required for appellate review of support and attorney's fee awards in dissolution cases.

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Key Quotes

“when making support and attorney's fee awards in a dissolution of marriage proceeding, the circuit court must include findings of fact sufficient to permit appellate review of the awards”

Establishes the legal standard that trial courts must comply with when making support and attorney's fee determinations in divorce cases

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Facts & Procedural History

T. Clayton Jenkins was ordered to pay monthly child support of $1,140 and alimony, as well as a portion of Mrs. Jenkins's attorney's fees and costs in…

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Opinion of the Court
NORTHCUTT, Judge.

NORTHCUTT, Judge.

T. Clayton Jenkins challenges the final judgment dissolving his marriage to Sonia Jenkins and an order on her prayer for attorney’s fees and costs incurred in the dissolution proceeding. He contends the circuit court erred in establishing the amounts of his alimony and child support obligations and in directing him to pay a portion of Mrs. Jenkins’s attorney’s fees and costs without determining his income. We agree and reverse.

Case law and statutes provide that when making support and attorney’s fee awards in a dissolution of marriage proceeding, the circuit court must include findings of fact sufficient to permit appellate review of the awards. See, e.g., § 61.08(1), Fla. Stat. (2001); Knorr v. Knorr, 827 So. 2d 1017 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002); Segall v. Segall, 708 So. 2d 983, 988 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998). Among the more important of these findings is a determination of the parties’ respective incomes. See Segall, 708 So. 2d at 988.

In this case, the final judgment fails to include a finding as to Mr. Jenkins’s income at the time of the final hearing. Rather, it simply sets forth his earnings in each of four calendar years ending six months before the final hearing. These figures range from $89,899 to $124,089. Given this wide variation, the findings in the final judgment simply are inadequate to permit appellate review of the alimony, child support, and attorney’s fee awards.

In an effort to expedite matters and to avoid unnecessary expense to the parties, we temporarily relinquished jurisdiction with instructions to file supplemental findings setting forth the incomes the court attributed to each party when making its alimony, child support, and attorney’s fee awards. But the circuit court’s supplemental findings confuse matters further because they do not match the final judgment. For example, whereas the final judgment directs Mr. Jenkins to pay monthly child support of $1140, the court’s supplemental findings assert that Mr. Jenkins’s share of the child support obligation is $1177 per month, and our own calculation based on the income attributed to him in those findings suggests that his share of the child support obligation would be a different amount altogether. Consequently, we remain unable to review the final judgment. We strike the circuit court’s Written Finding Pursuant to Court’s Relinquishment of Jurisdiction as unresponsive. We reverse the alimony and child support awards contained in the final judgment of dissolution of marriage, reverse the award of attorney’s fees and costs, and remand with directions to revisit these three issues.

Reversed and remanded.

FULMER and STRINGER, JJ., Concur.


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