Category: Divorce

Divorce & Fraud

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By The Law Offices of Ronald H. Kauffman of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Monday, June 8, 2015.

People question their divorce agreements, suspecting their spouse lied. Two ex-wives in London are not just questioning, they’re taking their suspicions to the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court. What happens in Florida when one spouse suspects fraud?

As the Guardian reports:

Charles Sharland and Bhadresh Gohil are accused of concealing the value of their assets. Their former spouses are seeking to reopen financial negotiations on the grounds that the courts were provided with fraudulent evidence.

The hearing, before seven justices at the supreme court in Westminster, London, will assess whether non-disclosure entitles a claimant to reinstate a concluded divorce trial.

The applications by Alison Sharland and Varsha Gohil, both represented by the law firm Irwin Mitchell, have been joined for the justices to examine the impact of fraud on matrimonial disputes.

Sharland had accepted more than £10m in cash and properties from her ex-husband in the settlement but it later emerged that the shares in his company were worth considerably more than previously revealed. One estimate put the firm’s value at $1bn (£656m).

Gohil had accepted £270,000 plus a car in her divorce settlement in 2004. But it later became clear that her husband, who was tried and jailed for fraud and money-laundering sums of up to £37m, had not given the court accurate information about his finances

“Both cases raise serious issues about how the courts should handle cases where information shared with the court and used to agree a divorce settlement is later found to be false or incomplete.”

I’ve written about fraud in family law before. In Florida, it’s possible to overturn a final judgment based on fraud. But it’s not as simple as merely proving fraud.

That’s because there are different types of fraud. For example, did your husband lie to you about where the courthouse was, or did you lie to him about whether he was the father of your child?

Courts also feel pressure to make final judgments final. Claims of fraud therefore need a trial to explan the facts and circumstances. It is rare for a court to determine the presence or absence of fraud without a trial or some kind of evidentiary hearing.

Allegations of fraud involve the intent of the alleged wrongdoer, and require judges to evaluate the credibility of witnesses and the evidence. If you suspect there was fraud in your case, you will want to consult with a board certified expert marital and family attorney.

For the Guardian article click here.

Does the Sex of your Judge Matter?

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By The Law Offices of Ronald H. Kauffman of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Monday, May 18, 2015.

I am frequently asked by divorce clients whether the sex of the judge, or the mediator or the other side’s divorce lawyer matters. The question is one of gender bias. Gender bias exists throughout society, so why not in the courtroom?

Sex and the Judge

I’ve written about courtroom tips before. If you ever go to court, you will find that the ratio of judges in the Miami-Dade County family division tends to be about a 50/50 split between male and female judges.

Do judges care whether the lawyers and clients who appear before them are male or female? The question really asks are judges biased. The answer is yes . . . to a certain extent. But who isn’t?

Some female judges have a reputation of being pro-female, other female judges have a reputation of being pro-male. The reverse is also true. Some male judges have a reputation of being pro-male, while others are known to be pro-female. It all depends on the personality, upbringing, and personal experiences of your judge.

In examining a judge’s decision which you suspect is gender biased, ask yourself if the result would be the same if the genders of the parties were reversed?

Sex and the Client

All clients make assumptions about the lawyers they hire. Some clients assume that men will be more aggressive and women may be softer in general, and that this preconceived assumption translates to lawyers and judges. From my experience, that is not always true.

I know many female lawyers who are overly aggressive and way too eager to go to court on a matter. I also know many male lawyers who are calm, and looking to resolve disputes not create them. I know of female judges that wouldn’t give you the time of day, and others that would work through the night to resolve a custody case. The difference between the types of attorneys is personality not gender.

Sex and the Lawyer

For me, the gender of the opposing attorney or judges or mediators makes little difference. Some male lawyers are no better, no tougher, or no more difficult to get along with than some female lawyers, judges or mediators.

But, even though the sex of a lawyer, judge or mediator is not very important to me, other qualities about a lawyer are.

Dealing with Gender Bias

Bias affects us all. This is true in the courtroom, the classroom, as well as your bedroom. We all make snap judgments about people based on stereotypes or experiences. It is instinctual to make judgments in this way.

The Florida Supreme Court has authorized a few studies on gender bias in the courtroom. It found that gender bias – discrimination based solely on one’s sex – is a reality. An understanding of how bias operates can help us identify and expose that bias in the courtroom.

The report of the Florida Supreme Court gender bias study is available here.

Destination Divorces: Where Should You File?

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By The Law Offices of Ronald H. Kauffman of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Monday, April 13, 2015.

Where should you file for divorce? If former Miss Malaysia Pauline Chai wins the £500 million she’s demanding, she’ll break all divorce records in the U.K., and that will cement London’s status as the Divorce Capital of the World.

Forbes magazine has reported that the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court in London, is wife-friendly, making it a divorce capital

A string of well-publicized divorces have been filed in London, which wives of very wealthy (and not-so-wealthy) ended their unions with better deals than they would have gotten in other countries.

It has put London at the top of the list for Divorce Tourism – or, as it’s known, “Divorces Eurostar.”

London saw its reputation as the divorce-jackpot destination enhanced after the Supreme Court last year overturned what’s known as the ‘cheats’ charter.’

“Britain’s highest court has ruled that millionaires cannot use their business interests to shield their wealth from their spouses in divorce cases.

While many divorce lawyers celebrated the end of the ‘cheats’ charter’ reveling in the reassertion of London’s reputation as a haven for divorcing wives, others worried that it will be replaced by a “gold diggers’ charter,” and threaten the independence of companies.

Marriage break-ups involving foreigners account for a sixth of cases before the English courts, which means a significant increase in international divorces now estimated to be 24,000 of the 150,000 in England and Wales each year.

Another ruling on marital property agreements affirmed English courts’ reputation as more generous than others. The landmark case introduced the principle that divorcing ‘money earners’ should not necessarily retain the surplus after a parting couple’s needs had been met. Instead, the residual cash should be divided equally.

London’s reputation as the divorce capital was reinforced again, in an anonymous case in which the court awarded £54 million to the wife, or 50% of the husband’s fortune, surpassing the previous record case in which an insurance magnate had to fork over £48 million to his wife after she rejected his £6 million settlement offer.

“The mother of five, Ms. Chai, who has been living on their 1,000 acre, £30 million home in Hertfordshire since October, issued a divorce petition in England in February.

His lawyers have told the British Court that allowing the case to be heard would enhance “the ill-gotten reputation of this country for being the divorce capital of the world.

The Daily Mail article on the divorce can be found here.

Don’t Invest When a Fund Manager is Divorcing

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By The Law Offices of Ronald H. Kauffman of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Monday, March 30, 2015.

Have you ever wondered if your stock market investments are impacted by your broker’s divorce? A recent study from the University of Florida shows that divorce can have an impact on a funds stock market performance.

Knowing if someone is going through a divorce can be an investment decision. A hedge fund’s alpha – the measure of how much it beats the market – has been shown to fall by an annualized 7.39 percent during a divorce.

Busy fund managers, who manage larger funds and engage in high tempo investment strategies, are more affected by marriage.

The study also found that fund managers who depend on interpersonal relationships in their investment strategies are more affected by divorce. Behavioral biases may partially explain the connection between inattention and performance deterioration.

An even more surprising result is that marriage actually does more damage to a fund manager’s performance, according Dr. Sugata Ray, one of the paper’s authors.

I’ve written before about the impact that a divorce can have on stock performance by comparing the stock performance during Rupert Murdoch’s divorce and the divorce of Harold Hamm.

Divorce has always been a red flag for savvy investors. Hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones II, said he withdraws his money from a fund when a manager’s marriage breaks up.

“You can automatically subtract 10% to 20% from any manager when he is going through a divorce,” he told a conference in 2013.

(Jones also famously noted at that same conference that women who have children can’t be great traders, so perhaps we’ll take his opinion with a grain of salt.)

Younger fund managers tend to have more performance problems around a divorce. The annualized alpha of younger fund managers fell by 15.7% when they got divorced, while older managers only lost 4.1%.

One hedge fund manager, Ken Griffin, hasn’t been affected (yet) by marital strife. He is in the middle of one of the most public and nasty divorces in recent memory. Despite that, his company’s three big funds have continued to outperform the market.

Another big factor is whether a fund manager has partners to help steer the ship during a crisis. Managers that work alone “get clobbered when they go through marriages and divorces,” said Ray. “They start to fall prey to behavioral biases, like selling their gains and holding on to their losses longer than they should.”

The findings were based on data collected from 1994 to 2012, tracking 786 managers who went through 857 marriages and 251 divorces.

The CNN article is available here.

Cohabitation & Divorce

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By The Law Offices of Ronald H. Kauffman of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Wednesday, March 4, 2015.

If you live together (cohabitate) before marriage, are you more likely to divorce? Put another way, what are the odds you’d be in your relationship if you hadn’t been living with your boyfriend or girlfriend first? The answer is: You wouldn’t be.

In a recent survey, respondents who had a firm commitment to marry before moving in together didn’t experience the low levels of commitment to the relationship. They were “deciding, not sliding.”

Scott Stanley, the co-director of Center for Marital and Family Studies, created a video which describes the joy-inducing chemicals released into the body at the start of a relationship – from dopamine to oxytocin – and how they can actually cloud our decisions.

Sexual activity increases the production of these chemicals, but even just going out to dinner with someone you’re falling for can have this effect. Under the “influence” of these drugs, the video explains, we start doing things that “lock us in” to a relationship. We get a joint cellphone plan, we co-sign a car loan, we adopt a dog together.

But after a few months, things may look different. Suddenly you wake up and realize that you don’t really want to be with this person. “You acted on the belief that you had a timeless love, but in reality you had a time-limited chemical high.” Yet you’ve made it extremely hard to disentangle yourself.

But it’s much more that keeps people in relationships past their expiration dates – including social restraints. People don’t assume the way they once did that shacking up is a step on the way to marriage, but most of your friends will still figure that living with a guy is a step closer to walking down the aisle.

For many women, that’s the point: Talk the guy into living with you, and you’re halfway to a ring. Many men aren’t thinking that. But, according to Stanley’s research, even the ones who do wind up proposing may have more regrets after the fact.

In a random-sample study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family in 2010, 20% of people who married before living together had divorced; the divorce rate was notably higher, 28 percent, for those who cohabited before even getting engaged.

The video suggests that people beginning a relationship keep their own apartments, cars and cellphone plans. Instead of a dog, maybe jointly adopt a goldfish.

The more you can get to know your possible life-mate without locking yourself in, the better chance you have of breaking up with the wrong person and finding the right one. This used to be called “dating.”

The New York Post article on the survey is here.

Facebook & Divorce

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By The Law Offices of Ronald H. Kauffman of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Sunday, February 8, 2015.

Facebook has revolutionized the way we form and keep relationships. However, Facebook envy could actually ruin a relationship and lead to divorce. This is especially true for new marriages, and new research may prove it. There is no doubt Facebook evidence pops up in more trials.

Facebook users were asked to describe how often they used Facebook and how conflict arose as a result of Facebook use. The results found high levels of Facebook use significantly predicted Facebook-related conflict, which then significantly predicted cheating, breakups, and divorce.

“Previous research has shown that the more a person in a romantic relationship uses Facebook, the more likely they are to monitor their partner’s Facebook activity more stringently, which can lead to feelings of jealousy”.

The study also found that excessive Facebook users are more likely to connect or reconnect with other Facebook users, including previous partners, which may lead to emotional and physical cheating.

“These findings held only for couples who had been in relationships of three years or less“. “This suggests that Facebook may be a threat to relationships that are not fully matured. On the other hand, participants who have been in relationships for longer than three years may not use Facebook as often, or may have more matured relationships, and therefore Facebook use may not be a threat or concern.

I recently published an article about Facebook evidence and divorce. I wrote about the benefits and obstacles in gathering and using Facebook evidence at trial.

After all, the evidence can be very helpful:

Husband . . . [posts] his single, childless status while seeking primary custody of said nonexistent children.

Mom denies in court that she smokes marijuana but posts partying, pot-smoking photos of herself on Facebook

Remember, the next time you log in, what you do in the digital world could have a very impact in the real world.

The University of Missouri study can be read here.

Chris Rock, Divorce and Privacy

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By The Law Offices of Ronald H. Kauffman of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Thursday, January 15, 2015.

Comedian Chris Rock filed for divorce. E! News obtained papers alleging his wife has kept his two daughters away from him! Celebrities, professionals and the wealthy have a hard time keeping their court papers private.

As a recent Forbes magazine article notes, for celebrities and wealthy clients, protecting children in divorce often means preserving the family’s good name and legacy for future generations.

“Celebrity clients nearly always arrive at a settlement rather than going to trial. After legal costs, privacy concerns are probably the biggest reason why”

In New York, there is an expectation of privacy in court filings. New York and other states grant document access to court filings only to litigants and counsel.

But this create a false sense of confidence. There is a thriving market for salacious information on high-profile families which makes it difficult to prevent leaks.

I’ve written before about Florida’s policy regarding the privacy and confidentiality of court records. Court records don’t just mean the contents of the court file. They also include transcripts, exhibits, videotapes and stenographic deposition tapes.

In an effort to protect privacy and prevent identity theft, Florida adopted a confidentiality rule to better protect social security and bank account numbers for instance. But Florida court filings are not private.

Privacy – and confidentiality of court filings – are easily overlooked issues when filing for divorce, and something you should be aware of.

For the past ten years, there has been a lot of effort put into developing safeguards, policies, and infrastructure needed to authorize public access to non-confidential electronic court records.

For instance, the Florida Supreme Court adopted a rule to define confidential court records and limit the public’s access to them. At the same time, there are divorce rules which require you to identify confidential information in court papers.

Even when documents are supposed to be confidential though, private information has a pesky way of becoming public.

Tort claims are often added to divorce complaints. These can include allegations of assault or sexually transmitted diseases.

Even if unfounded these accusations can be harmful to your personal and professional relationships. In filing for divorce, you have to understand the expectation in your jurisdiction regarding how the filings are kept private.

Even if records are protected, there has to be the “reality” check of whether in fact the information can and will remain private.

“Chris Rock has filed for divorce from his wife, Malaak,” the actor’s rep told E! News Monday. “This is a personal matter and Chris requests privacy as he and Malaak work through this process and focus on their family.”

Good luck with that Chris. The Forbes article can be read here.

Divorce and College Tuition

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By The Law Offices of Ronald H. Kauffman of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Monday, December 29, 2014.

Can you be forced to pay for your child’s college tuition? Two divorced New Jersey parents recently found out they have to pay for their adult daughter’s tuition at Temple University. Why?

As the New York Daily News reports, Temple University junior Caitlyn Ricci sued her parents for tuition money in 2013. Last week, a New Jersey judge ordered the divorced couple to pay $16,000 every year the 21-year-old is enrolled in classes.

The judge relied on Newburgh v. Arrigo. In that landmark case, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled divorced parents may be responsible for providing for their child’s “necessary education.”

In New Jersey, the law presumes that the privilege of parenthood carries with it the duty to assure a necessary education for children. Necessary education is a flexible concept, can vary in different circumstances, and may include college tuition.

The Ricci parents reportedly are estranged, and threw Caitlyn out of their house because she refused to accept house rules like doing chores and a curfew.

They tried reaching out to her after she moved to her grandparents’ in by sending cards, pictures, and poems, but got no response. The only time the parents have seen Caitlyn Ricci is in court.

Caitlyn sued her parents in 2013 soon after she moved out of her mother’s house. A New Jersey judge ordered the parents to help with tuition so long as she applied for all possible loans and scholarships. Her parents claimed she didn’t apply, so they refused to pay.

Last summer, she transferred to Temple University in Philadelphia. When she brought the case back to court, the tuition bills were a lot higher. The judge set the parents’ annual payment at $16,000.

The parents said they will only pay the tuition bill if their daughter makes an effort to reconcile the broken relationship. She still refuses to return messages and won’t look at them even in court.

Florida law does not follow New Jersey’s “necessary education” concept. In Florida, a parent’s duty to pay an adult child’s college expenses is moral rather than legal.

When parents in a divorce agree to educate their child after the child reaches 18, the agreement may be enforced. However, the obligation is not viewed as child support in Florida, but a contractual duty arising from the marital settlement agreement.

The New York Daily News article is here.

Stress Separation and Divorce

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By The Law Offices of Ronald H. Kauffman of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Monday, December 1, 2014.

Divorce is consistently ranked as one of the most stressful life events. But a new study is showing that dissolving a marriage is not the most stressful, being separated is.

As the Huffington Post reports, a new poll was conducted for the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. The researchers found that those who are separated experienced significantly more daily stress than those who were married or divorced.

According to the study 51% of separated Americans reported feeling stressed the day prior to taking the survey, while only 38.6% of married Americans and 44.1% of divorced Americans claimed to feel the same way.

Dan Witters, author of the Gallup study, reported that divorcees may have boosted well-being levels because they’re not going through the uncertainty and anxiety that come with being separated.

“At least when you get divorced, there’s closure,” Witters said. “You can both move on with your lives, and you can start digging yourself out of that well-being hole that you found yourself in during the during the separation process.”

Separated women, in particular, seem to be the most stressed. They were more stressed than married women by 16% — separated men, on the other hand, were only more stressed than married men by 10.5%. This could be because women usually take a harder financial hit when a marriage dissolves.

Witters also said that, if there are children involved, the kids often suffer as they see their parents splitting up, moving houses or even just struggling to make their marriage work.

“The effects of parenting are going to be pronounced inside of a separated environment,” Witters said. “The kids are typically going to suffer in that kind of environment — how can that not affect the emotional health of the parents going through it?”

Those who are separated were also more likely to turn to drugs or prescription medication, according to the survey. About 29% of separated Americans said they use drugs or other medications, compared to 17% of married Americans — so clearly, all of this emotional stress is taking a toll on the physical health of those going through a split.

“Don’t fall into that trap of thinking that you’re in it alone or what you’re experiencing is unique,” he said. “I think that there can be a comfort in knowing that this is pretty normal and that this is something that most people go through.”

The Huffington Post report can be found here.

Divorce Rates Rising . . . in Iran

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By The Law Offices of Ronald H. Kauffman of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Wednesday, November 26, 2014.

Around the world couples are splurging on divorce parties. It is a sign of an undeniable trend: divorce rates are rising. This angers clerics in Iran. So what’s behind the increase over there?

As Reuters recently reported, Mustafa Pour Mohammadi, the current justice minister, said that 14 million divorce cases within the judiciary is “not befitting of an Islamic system”.

Some of the causes for divorce in Iran, like Florida, include economic problems, adultery, drug addiction or physical abuse. But the increase in the divorce rate has also been linked to a growth in individualism.

Women are more educated and have increased financial empowerment. It used to be that a woman would marry and she would just have to get along. Now if she’s not happy, she’ll separate. It’s not taboo.

In Iran, the government doesn’t like divorce to come from the side of women. Marital law in Iran traditionally favors husbands, who have the right to ask for a divorce.

In the cases where the husband refuses to divorce, the wife must legally prove that the husband is abusive, has psychological problems or is somehow unable to uphold his marriage responsibilities in order to separate.

Another alternative is to enforce the Mahr agreement. I’ve written about Mahr agreements before.

Mahr agreements are common in Iran, are negotiated before the marriage and have two parts: a premarital payment in exchange for marriage vows, and a post-nuptial payment made if the marriage ends in divorce or death. Mahr agreements in Iran are usually based on gold coins.

The rise in the divorce rate worries government officials in Iran because it comes as the birth rate is plunging. Last year, parliament’s social affairs committee proposed that $1.1 billion be dedicated to facilitating marriages but the motion did not pass in parliament.

A more controversial proposal has been to create a Ministry of Marriage and Divorce, which some officials have criticized on the grounds that a new ministry would create more bureaucracy rather than address the overall issue of rising divorce.

The Reuters report can be read here.