Over the years, I have blogged about alimony formulas, “rules of thumb” and similar ways that alimony is settled. I say settled, because in most instances, courts are not allowed to use a formula to determine alimony. Basically, there are two types of formulas that we often see. One takes a percentage of the differences
New Case Inadvertently Serves as a Tip for Couples with Young Children Divorcing/Setting Child Support
The newly unreported (does not set precedent) decision of Covone v. Curreri makes two bold moves: (1) asserting that the passage of time is not a change in circumstance warranting a modification to child support and (2) confirming that the trial court has authority to allocate expenses between parents even without proof of their financial
The Best Interests of the Child Remains the Focus of Name Change Applications
In Z.A. v. R.V., Jr., an unpublished Appellate Division case, meaning not precedential, the Appellate Division ruled that the best interests of the child governs a surname change. This rationale falls squarely with the court’s previous cases that a child’s name change must be evaluated under the best interest standard. Emma v. Evans,
Alienating Your Kids from Their Other Parent May Cost Your Kids Big When it Comes to Child Support and College.
Here in New Jersey, divorced parents are generally obligated to contribute to the college education expenses for their un-emancipated children. In virtually every marital settlement agreement where there are un-emancipated children (the agreement the parties to a divorce enter into in resolution of all of their financial and/or parenting time issues), there is some sort
Appellate Division Clears Up the Alimony Statute Application for Early Retirement in Pre-Amendment Cases
The Appellate Division recently published a decision, Amzler v. Amzler, making it precedent setting on the use of the new alimony statute in a case of a payor’s early retirement, where parties entered into an alimony agreement prior to its enactment in September 2014. While 2014 may feel like years ago because it was,
Two Months of Overnights May Not Definitively Mean Cohabitation, But It Should At Least Get You Discovery
As we have said before, the 2014 amendments to the alimony statute allegedly made it easier to terminate alimony if the recipient of the alimony was cohabiting. The statute now provides that alimony may be terminated or suspended if cohabitation was proven. The statute made clear that the parties didn’t even have to live together
Solving The Puzzle Now Will Hopefully Make For A Less Litigious Future
One of the hardest lessons I learned in my early days of practicing family law is that a case is never really over when we think it’s over. I remember walking out of my first uncontested hearing so proud that I helped finalize a client’s divorce, emotional for their loss (yes, it happened to be
I’m Moving With the Kids To Burlington County – Not So Fast
For decades, when a custodial parent wanted to move out of state, it would not be unusual to hear that if the court or other party won’t let me leave New Jersey, she will just move to Cape May, or some other point far away from North or Central Jersey. When someone wanted to move
No Prima Facie Showing of Cohabitation = No Right to Discovery to Try to Prove It
For the second time in about a month, the Appellate Division has reversed improvidently granted discovery when there hadn’t been a showing of a change of circumstance. As noted by Eliana Baer on this blog on August 12, 2019 (about a case she and I were involved in) in a post entitled Appellate Division Rules:
Appellate Division Rules: No Custody Evaluation Without Finding of Changed Circumstances
Last week, Eric Solotoff and I achieved victory in the Appellate Division in the unreported (non-precedential) decision of Gatto v. Breton, wherein the Court reversed the trial court’s order permitting the Plaintiff father to obtain a custody evaluation without the requisite finding of changed circumstances.
By way of background, the parties were divorced in