South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Alimony law in Florida changes drastically under new bill
By Kathleen Haughney and Lisa Huriash, Sun Sentinel
7:33 PM EDT, April 18, 2013
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TALLAHASSEE Florida lawmakers sent Gov. Rick Scott a bill Thursday that would drastically overhaul the state's alimony laws, reforming payments that opponents say have been critical to ex-spouses — mostly women — who are trying to rebuild their lives after the breakup of their marriage.
SB 718, approved by lawmakers by an 85-31 vote, would end permanent alimony, cap alimony awards based on a person's income and the length of the marriage and make it easier for an ex-spouse to terminate or lower alimony payments upon retirement. It also gives parents equal custody of any children in the marriage.
Proponents of the bill said they were trying to update divorce laws, which they said were written at a time when women were expected to stay home. They argued that the current law could bind divorced spouses financially for life, depending on a judge's ruling, and there needed to be stricter guidelines for the court.
Rep. Ritch Workman, R-Melbourne, the bill sponsor said the measure was about "fairness."
"Look, we all know divorce is terrible, but our laws by their nature shouldn't make divorce worse," he said.
The proposal has been pushed by a group called Florida Alimony Reform, who has brought groups of people to Tallahassee to testify about how the current system has wrecked their lives or their families' lives.
Terry Yochum, of Deerfield Beach, has been writing senators urging them to pass the legislation.
Married for 23 years, he divorced in 2004. He said he pays permanent alimony, and more than one-third of his salary goes to alimony "until the day I die. And she has access to my Social Security as well. I've sacrificed a lot. And it's hard for me to move on with my life."
"There are a lot of people in similar situations I am," he added. "It's hard to move on in your life when you have that monkey on your back, and remarry."
The bill defines short, medium and long-term marriages. It says there is a "presumption" that alimony would typically be awarded for unions longer than 21 years, but it would be capped at 38 percent of the paying spouse's gross income.
For medium-length marriages, of 11 to 21 years, the cap would be 35 percent of income; for those of less than 10 years, the limit would be 25 percent. Unless a judge found a specific reason to award extra alimony, the duration of the alimony would be equal to no more than half of the years of marriage.
Though many lawmakers agreed those caps were reasonable, the bill has generated controversy because in some cases, it allows a man or woman to retroactively change the terms of their divorce.
Yochum even acknowledged that those provisions could be unfair to older women who worked while they put their husbands through college or graduate school and then were divorced.
"There are two sides to every story," he said.
In Boca Raton, the legislation led Jan Nastasia to start First Wives First because ex-wives still suffer, she told the Sun-Sentinel in an email. Many give up careers — and good incomes — to raise children, she said. Nastasia herself said she was a stay-at-home mom until her divorce after 24 years of marriage.
She wrote in an op-ed for Florida Voices, an opinion news website, that a vocational expert during her divorce said because she had opted to stay home, she would likely be capable of earning only about $29,000 a year, which is what her alimony was based upon. Her ex has since stopped paying, she wrote, and she is struggling to pay for simple things like groceries.
"If alimony reform passes, then I can join the 1.1 million Floridians on food stamps," she wrote. "I'll be standing in line for my welfare check while my ex-husband is skiing in Lake Tahoe."
Workman said that under the measure, "non-modifiable" agreements should not be touched. But in cases of marriages of less than 15 years, when alimony has been paid for longer than that, the bill allows the award to be reduced or negated.
Additionally, longer marriages that produced a settlement agreed to as a result of "fraud, duress, coercion or overreaching" by one of the parties can also be undone by a judge.
Workman said he wanted to give judges discretion in cases where there were special circumstances, such as a large number of children or children with disabilities. Or, a spouse may need alimony for a longer time because he or she suffers from mental illness, he said.
Judges who make awards outside the guidelines established in Workman's bill would have to state their reasons in writing.
"I said, 'Here's your guideline, but judge if you want to go past this, just write it down,'" Workman said.
Still, some lawmakers said the legislation could be viewed as anti-family and a deterrent to any woman who was thinking about staying home and giving up career security — and that it was especially unfair to women who made those choices decades ago.
"It's unconstitutional and unbelievable that we would go back on a contract made between a husband and a wife when we know the culture back then said the woman should have stayed home and become a housemaker," said state Rep. Kionne McGhee, D-Miami.
Gov. Scott has not weighed in on the bill yet, and members of the Florida Bar Family Law section are lobbying him to veto it. And some divorce lawyers are unclear whether the retroactivity provision would hold up constitutionally.
"It will be a entirely brave new world for us," said Coral Springs divorce lawyer Mark Abzug. "The concept of permanent alimony is seemingly out the window. I think it will change the divorce rate; I think people would be more willing to get divorced.
"Men that have been hanging on might decide 'OK, I know I have to pay alimony, but not for the rest of my life.' They might decide to roll the dice."
Donna Gehrke-White contributed to this report.
