Bay Area Divorce Lawyer Blog

April 3, 2013

Court Says Wife Can’t Get Spousal Support Because of Domestic Violence Conviction – In re Marriage of Priem

A criminal conviction is a serious matter that may not only come with significant fines and even jail time, but also have other far reaching effects. For example, as California’s First District Court of Appeals explains in In re Marriage of Priem, a person convicted of domestic violence may be barred from obtaining spousal support in the event of a later divorce.The couple was married in 1999 and had two children before divorcing more than 10 years later. A trial court ordered Husband to pay Wife more than $14,000 per month in child support as well as a portion of her attorney’s fees. The court declined Wife’s request of spousal support, however, finding that she was not entitled to such support as a result of a history of domestic violence toward Husband. Specifically, the court noted that Wife plead no contest to a misdemeanor for battery committed against a spouse in May 2008.

On appeal, the First District explained that California law “creates a rebuttable presumption that spousal support requests are not to be granted to spouses who have been convicted of domestic violence during the five years preceding the filing of a petition for dissolution.” Essentially, according to the court, the law is designed to ensure that “victims of domestic violence not be required to finance their own abuse.” A reviewing court may consider the other spouse’s domestic violence history as well as any other factors that may weigh against the presumption in contemplating a specific spousal support request.

The Court rejected Wife’s argument that the trial court wrongly denied her support request based on the 2008 battery because she pleaded no contest to this crime.

Under Penal Code section 1016, a no contest plea cannot be considered an admission of the crime in a civil suit stemming from the act on which the plea was based. Criminal defendants plead no contest for a wide variety of reasons, including bargaining with prosecutors, and the law is designed so as to limit any disincentives to making the plea. Here, the Court found that the spousal support proceeding was not based on nor did it “grow out of” the alleged battery in 2008. As a result, the lower court did not err in denying Wife’s support request.

March 4, 2013

Gay Divorce: From Marriage Equality to Divorce Equality

by Lorna Jaynes

Getting divorced, as anyone who has been through it knows, is far more complicated and costly than getting married. And that is for straight folks. For gay couples, it is far less straight forward. That’s the subject of a New York magazine cover story on gay divorce, entitled, “From I Do”, to ” I’m Done.” After describing the break-up of one gay couple — Kevin Muir and Sam Ritchie, who married in 2004 in Massachusetts — the piece highlights the many legal issues involved.

From “I do” to “I’m done”, thought often fraught with conflict and animus, can be a clear and well-understood process for straight couples. When their legal marriage is over, they understand they will need a legal divorce. But for gay couples, the promise of marriage is still so new and incomplete that the idea of divorce courts, property settlements, spousal support and all the rest is not on the radar. Who would consider the process of undoing a contract that until very recently you were not allowed to enter into. This is not the focus of marriage-equality advocates, but the gay divorce boom is imminent. In part because nearly 50,000 of the approximately 640,000 gay couples in 2011 were married. Julie and Hillary Goodridge, the lead plaintiffs in the Massachusetts same-sex marriage case, divorced in 2009.

According to LGBT think tank, the Williams Institute, about one percent of same-sex marriages dissolve each year, versus two percent for different-sex couples. But many observers expect the gay divorce rate to increase since many of the first gay couples to marry were the most long-term and stable ones.

March 4, 2013

Ethically challenged client and California divorce attorney trick ex-husband into drunk-driving after setting him up with hot-tub blonde on Match.com

by Lorna Jaynes

As a new family law attorney my very first litigation matter involved a client whose spouse’s attorney was the (now disgraced) Mary Nolan. It was a horrific experience for me and I ultimately told my client that he needed to retain a different kind of attorney – the quintessential ‘shark’ litigator, if he was going to survive this divorce with Ms. Nolan on the other side. The great benefit that I derived from this experience is that I learned very early how ugly divorce could be, that the traditional process did not work for me or for the clients. I knew there had to be a better way.

A six-count indictment on September 18, 2012 charged Mary Nolan with tax evasion and unlawfully intercepting communications. Recently, Ms. Nolan pled not guilty to charges that she hired a private investigator, who was a central character in Contra Costa County’s “dirty DUI” scandal, to illegally install listening devices inside the car of a client’s ex-husband.

Mr. David Dutcher, from Contra Costa County, challenged a custody ruling he claims was based on a DUI charge that occurred after his ex-wife paid a blonde woman to trick into drunk driving. Mr. Dutcher said he was arrested and pulled over for drunken driving in 2008 shortly after he was propositioned by two young women to come home with them and ‘continue things in the hot tub’.

February 19, 2013

Court Looks at Wife’s Job Prospects in Determining Spousal Support – In re Marriage of Baron

by Lorna Jaynes

There is more than one way to split a pie. For couples considering a divorce in California, for example, a variety of issues can determine how the pie (money, property, etc.) is divided between spouses. In In re Marriage of Baron, California’s Second District Court of Appeals takes a look at some of those issues, including a spouse’s ability to work.Richard and Sandra Baron were married for nearly 30 years before divorcing in 2007. Shortly after they were married, the couple started a retail and commercial nursery in which Richard’s brother also owned a 40 percent stake. Sandra worked for the company over three decades – as an office manager and in other clerical positions – until she was fired in 2010.

In a stipulated agreement, the Barons decided that Richard would buy out Sandra’s interest in the business, paying her $1 million (plus interest) over the course of 15 years. Following a trial, a lower court also ordered him to pay spousal support in the amount of $5,500 per month until either person died or Sandra remarried. The court additionally required Richard to buy a $500,000 term life insurance policy as security for spousal support.

In reaching this decision, the trial court noted that Sandra was 62 years old and had recently been fired from the only job she’d ever had. “The court finds it is unrealistic to believe that [she] will find employment in the near future,” the trial judge wrote.

The Second District upheld the order on appeal, rejecting Richard’s argument that he couldn’t afford to pay support because of the money he owed Sandra for her share of the business. The court explained that these were two separate issues. “Richard’s analysis is based on the incorrect assumption that his property division obligation affects his ability to pay spousal support,” the court said. Citing its 1991 decision in In re Marriage of Martin, the court further explained that “a spouse may not finance a ‘buy-out’ of community property and then successfully claim inability to pay spousal support.”

February 16, 2013

Divorce Your Spouse, But For the Sake of Your Children, Create or Preserve a Positive Co-Parenting Relationship

by Lorna Jaynes

A judge from the state of Minnesota, Michael Haas, said the following in 2001.

“Your children have come into this world because of the two of you. Perhaps you two made lousy choices as to whom you decided to be the other parent. If so, that is your problem and your fault.

No matter what you think of the other party – or whatever your family thinks of the other party- these children are one-half of each of you. Remember that, because every time you tell your child what an “idiot” his father is, or what a “fool” his mother is, or how bad the absent parent is, or what terrible things that person has done, you are telling the child half of him is bad.

February 16, 2013

This American Life on Divorce

by Lorna Jaynes

A segment of This American Life with Ira Glass on NPR, entitled Breakup, addresses divorce from several different perspectives and is well worth a listen.

In Act Two, an eight-year-old girl embarks on a campaign to understand her parents’ divorce, a campaign that takes her to school guidance counselors, children’s book authors, and the mayor of New York City. The segment re-plays her 1986 interview on All Things Considered as a young child and how she struggled to understand why the divorce happened. In this interview 20 years later, she praises her mother for putting her daughter’s interest first by encouraging and supporting her relationship with her father, never blaming her father, and never saying anything about her father’s affair.

In Act Three, Ira speaks with a Collaborative Divorce attorney and Mediator about why it is so bad when the justice system gets involved in a divorce and the many benefits for families who can resolve the issues outside of court. The attorney speaks to the value of a process that focuses on listening to the other and seeking to understand.

January 27, 2013

Spousal Support After Remarriage, Retirement – In re Marriage of Cesana

by Lorna Jaynes

Spousal support is an important issue in many California divorce proceedings. As California’s First District Court of Appeals’ recent ruling in In re Marriage of Cesana shows, the issue can become tricky when one or both former spouses’ situations change over the years.

Nelly and Amedeo Cesana were married for 24 years before divorcing in 1985. Under the terms of a settlement agreement between the former husband and wife, Amedeo agreed to pay monthly spousal support to Nelly at a rate of 30 percent of Amedeo’s income, capped at a maximum $9,000 per month. As the court explained, “Amedeo’s financial circumstances varied greatly” in the years following the couple’s divorce. As a result, the two agreed verbally that Amedeo would support Nelly to the best of his ability. He made varying payments until 2008.

Later, Amedeo experienced financial difficulty when the company that he founded went bankrupt shortly after the divorce. He subsequently started a second company with his new wife, Rhonda, and employed Nelly as an administrative assistant from 2004 to 2007. He did not pay marital support during this time, but began paying Nelly $1,500 a month after her employment with the company was terminated.

Amedeo (60 percent) and Rhonda (40 percent) owned the company jointly until 2007 when he transferred his ownership interest in the company to his wife, making Rhonda sole owner. A lawyer for Nelly contacted Amedeo by letter in January 2008, claiming that he owed Nelly a significant sum of money for missed spousal support payments over the years. Amedeo disputed the claim and shortly thereafter retired from the company, reducing his salary to $60,000 from $180,000. Rhonda, meanwhile, continued to work for the company at an annual salary of $140,000.

In the lawsuit that followed, a trial court ordered Amedeo to pay $1,500 per month in spousal support, as well as $15,000 for Nelly’s attorney fees, but denied Nelly’s request that he also be required to pay support arrears. In determining the monthly support sum, the court combined Amedeo and Rhonda’s current salaries ($200,000) and divided the figure in half to calculate what it called Amedeo’s annual income. The court explained that much of Rhonda’s income was owed to Amedeo’s efforts in starting and running the company. “[W]hile Rhonda has a significant management role in the company, and certainly performs more than just a clerical or administrative function,… it is inequitable and unreasonable to divide the collective income received by Amedeo and his wife in anything other than an equal manner,” the trial court explained.

January 23, 2013

California Court Explains Retroactive Child Support Orders – In re Marriage of Barth

by Lorna Jaynes

“If ever there was a case where the adage ‘be careful what you wish for’ applied, this is surely it,” Judge P.J . Moore recently wrote, introducing the matter of In re Marriage of Barth. As Moore went on to explain, California law allows a court to order a parent to pay retroactive child support going back to an original petition for divorce, even if it was filed in the wrong state.Jeffrey Barth spent years trying to avoid the enforcement of an Ohio court’s ruling granting wife Andrea Barth’s petition for divorce, custody and child support, only to have a California court grant similar petitions and order a substantially larger child custody payment.

The couple were married in 1989 and had two children. Ms. Barth filed for divorce in October 2004 after her husband admitted to extramarital affairs, according to the court. Following protracted litigation on the matter, an Ohio court awarded the divorce, granted Ms. Barth custody of the children and ordered Mr. Barth to pay $1,600 per month in child support.

Mr. Barth ultimately had the order overturned after the Ohio Supreme Court agreed that the state courts did not have jurisdiction over the matter because Ms. Barth had not lived in Ohio long enough before filing suit. Prior to the divorce, she left the state with her kids to join Mr. Barth in California, but returned shortly thereafter upon learning of her husband’s affair.

Litigation moved to California, where an Orange County court granted the divorce and ordered Mr. Barth to pay retroactive support of between $2,700 and $3,125 per month for 2004 to 2005, $7,645 per month for 2006 and between $1,000 and $3,050 per month for 2007.

January 1, 2013

Who Decides Custody Issues When Parents Live in Different States? In re T.J.

by Lorna Jaynes

In a recent ruling in the matter of In re T.J., the Second District Court of Appeals tackled an important question that often arises in California child custody cases: which court has jurisdiction to consider a custody matter when the parents live in different states?

RJ and AJ married in Texas in 2001 and had a son, TJ, two years later. The couple split in 2004 and AJ moved to New Jersey with the child. The parents obtained a divorce in Texas in 2007. Through mediation, they reached a custody agreement under which AJ was declared the “Sole Managing Conservator” of T.J., with the right to decide his primary residence while RJ was given detailed visitation rights. RJ talked to TJ over the phone regularly and the child spent long stretches of the summer in Texas with his father.

After living together in New Jersey for several years, AJ and the child moved to California in 2011. The move was in part intended to help AJ cope with depression, her thinking being that the weather and a location change would improve her general mood. A few months after the move, however, AJ checked herself into a clinic with depression and thoughts of suicide. A hospital social worker referred TJ to the L.A. Department of Children and Family Services because AJ was unable to make other arrangements for him while she was being treated. AJ later completed her treatment.

The Department filed a petition in state court pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, which gives courts jurisdiction to ajudicate matters concerning a minor child who has suffered or is at substantial risk of suffering “serious physical harm or illness, as a result of the failure or inability of his or her parent or guardian to adequately supervise or protect the child.” RJ then filed a motion seeking custody. The court later ordered that TJ be placed in his mother’s home under Department supervision.

On appeal, the Second District reversed the decision, finding that the lower court lacked jurisdiction to issue it. The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, which has been adopted as law in both California and Texas, “is the exclusive method for determining the proper forum in custody cases involving other jurisdictions and governs juvenile dependency proceedings,” the court explained. Because the original decision regarding TJ’s custody was rendered by the Texas court, that court maintained exclusive jurisdiction under the UCCJEA to decide any further custody-related issues.

December 20, 2012

Co-Parenting During the Holidays

by Lorna Jaynes

Even for happily married and intact families, the holidays can be fraught with conflict and compromise. But for divorced or separated parents and for blended families – the potential for conflict is significantly higher. Negotiating co-parenting agreements and sharing time with kids is rarely easy, but this is a time of year when it can be most difficult to let go because of the tradition and ritual around how the holidays are managed.

But for the sake of the kids you have to share it. And here are tips to help your holiday season be filled with merriment – not resentment.

Make a plan