State Rep. Matt Gaetz has thrown himself into the middle of what could be a spirited battle over alimony reform.
Gaetz is a co-sponsor of House Bill 231, championed by a group called Florida Alimony Reform and opposed by the Family Law Section of the Florida Bar.
According to John Fromularo, spokesman for Florida Alimony Reform, H.B. 231 and its companion Senate Bill 718 would reform the way alimony payments are regulated in five important ways:
- Eliminate permanent alimony;
- Create a “right to retire” from alimony payments;
- Establish a “right to modify current judgments;”
- Establish alimony based on an average of spouses’ income; and
- Bar second spouses' incomes from being used as a factor for additional alimony.
Although the Family Law Section of the Florida Bar opposes the bills, Shalimar family law attorney Mike Webster said “alimony reform is, in fact, long overdue.”
“What has been happening in the court system over my 32 years of practice is an expansion of the awards. The generosity of the courts is causing a backlash from husbands who are paying alimony,” he said.
He said he has seen many instances in which an alimony award is abused, possibly most often in the cases in which a man and woman live together after a divorce and, by not marrying, continue to collect alimony from a former spouse.
“I know of one case where a man is paying alimony to an ex-wife who has been living with her fianc￩ for three years,” he said.
Webster said the abuses are allowed to occur because the courts have come to too narrowly define “supportive relationship.”
Alimony reform would address the abuse, Webster said, but in his opinion does not go far enough.
Elisha Roy, chairwoman-elect of the Florida Bar’s Family Law Section, argued that without a clear definition of “co-habitation” it will be impossible to determine what is a supportive relationship.
She called H.B. 231 and S.B. 718 “anti-family.”
“It’s horrible for Florida and it’s horrible for Florida families,” she said.
Roy said revoking permanent alimony status or averaging salaries in negotiating alimony would punish a woman or a man for sacrificing to raise children. She provided as an example a 50-year-old housewife with children divorcing after years of marriage.
“The bill says both parents need to work,” she said. “ ‘You are both self-supporting,’ is what the bill says. If you live in Florida and have kids, congratulations to the day-care provider because you’re both going out to work.”
Gaetz, who called H.B. 231 “good legislation,” could not be reached for further comment Friday.
The bill attempts to eliminate permanent alimony — alimony for life — and offer three things in its place, Fromularo said. It provides bridge-the-gap alimony, durational alimony and rehabilitative alimony.
Bridge-the-gap alimony would be paid until such time as a spouse can find work and make money. Rehabilitative alimony is set up to provide money until a divorced spouse can learn a trade and get into the workforce.
Durational alimony, as the bill defines it, would pay alimony for half the duration of the marriage.
Roy sees the alimony reform legislation as allowing “anybody paying alimony to go back and renegotiate.”
“It will open the floodgates to litigation,” she said.
On the other hand, Webster sees leaving judges with less wiggle room to interpret case law as the best way to reduce lawsuits over alimony issues.
“We need to take away the discretion of the trial courts and make everything black and white. We need bright-line rules, clear lines of demarcation. It’s in the exceptions that litigation is bred, and we litigate,” he said. “With the trial courts, if you give them an inch they’ll take a mile.”
Webster estimated his clients to be about 50 percent men and 50 percent women. He said existing laws shaping alimony rulings don’t seem to account for the earning power of women in 2013.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.