Category: Divorce

Courtroom Manners – How to (Not) Act in Court

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On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Monday, December 2, 2013.

It’s been said that in criminal courts, judges see the worst people acting their best. If so, family judges see the best people acting their worst. child custody, relocation, and domestic violence cases put a lot of stress on people. Since you’re always being evaluated, what follows is a list of “dos” and “don’ts”.

Don’t – Come to a custody hearing wearing your Nazi uniform – complete with swastika patch on the arm and leather boots – and demand a family court judge let you see your son.

Do – Dress in a neat and professional manner.

Don’t – Speak on your cellular telephone because judges hate ringing cell phones. Judges hate ringing phone so much, that U.S. District Judge Hugh B. Clarke Jr. fined himself $50 when his own cell phone started ringing during a hearing.

Do – Keep your cell phone ringer off, and if you absolutely need to have your phone on, put it on vibrate.

Don’t – Take off your pants and show the judge your rear end. Try not to make faces or gestures, don’t show your anger or disdain for the other side or the court.

Do – Keep a “poker” face when others are talking, and be clear and confident and in a loud clear voice when you are talking.

Don’t – lose your temper in court, give the middle finger salute, dare the judge to hold you in contempt while holding your arms out as if you are being handcuffed and then contact the judge’s judicial assistant, and call her: “You little mother******; you and the judge, that mother****** son of a b****.”

Do – Be Courteous to the Court staff. Court personnel make the courts run efficiently, and angering court officers may impact your case.

Yes, sadly these are cases of what people have actually done in court, and all of these instances are documented. Consider the solemnity of the courtroom, the stress family cases have on everyone, and show some respect to the judges and others in the courtroom who deal with these cases on a daily basis.

Divorce and the Pet Dog

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On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Tuesday, November 26, 2013.

An ever increasing problem in divorce is over who gets to keep the pet dog and cat during and after the divorce. Imagine you’ve been married for 12 years, but you don’t have any children. Your Labrador Retriever is your closest friend, guardian and constant companion. The problem is your soon-to-be ex-husband or ex-wife feels the same way.

Nearly a quarter of divorce lawyers surveyed across the country have noticed an increase in pet-custody cases in the last five years, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. The article can be read here.

There is a shift occurring in our society in which the … pet is considered more a member of the family … and therefore becomes sadly a part of the battle when the family disintegrates,” said Joyce Tischler, founding director of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit organization based in Northern California.

A 2001 survey by the American Animal Hospital Association found that 83 percent of pet owners refer to themselves as their pet’s “mom” or “dad.” That relationship is not acknowledged by the courts, where pets are still considered property, no different from the silverware, the plasma TV and the living-room sofa.

So, who does a judge award your Chocolate Lab to? Can a judge order a timesharing schedule? Any visits at all? Clients often come to me with their concerns about pets in the divorce.

Your chocolate lab may be considered a member of the family to you, but under Florida law, “Brownie” is merely chattel – personal property to be divided in divorce. A judge lacks authority to grant custody or award visitation or a timesharing schedule to personal property.

Not all states have ruled out a visitation schedule for dogs. For instance, while Texas also views dogs as personal property, in one case a Texas court authorized visitation.

Florida doesn’t because Florida courts are already overwhelmed with the supervision of custody, visitation, and support matters related to the protection of children, that courts cannot undertake the same responsibility as to animals.

Divorce vs. Separation

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On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Thursday, November 21, 2013.

I often meet clients who want to divorce after already being separated. Sometimes their separation is very recent, maybe after a big fight. Other times though, their separation has been going on for months – sometimes even years. Is a long term separation a good thing?

As Forbes magazine reports, sometimes the ease of a long term separation hides some real dangers. This Forbes article identifies a few problems I think everyone should consider:

1. Less Control of Assets. If you are separated, you could be out of the loop financially, and not know what the other spouse is earning, spending, investing, selling or buying.

2. Opportunity to Hide Assets. Many times one spouse uses separation periods to make assets disappear and increase debt.

3. Changed Circumstances. When we draft divorce agreements and orders we are usually trying to ‘present value’ assets and liabilities. In a long separation, people lose jobs, change jobs, become ill, retire and these changed circumstances could lower your expected alimony or support payment.

4. Relocation. Laws vary from state to state. Over times, as circumstances change, new job requirements and new relationships may mean that one of the spouses has to relocate to another state. Your simple divorce can morph into a major battle over the ability to relocate with your children.

5. Alimony Reform. Alimony change is in the air, and it is only a matter of time before alimony reform changes Florida Statutes. We dodged the bullet after the last legislative session. However, alimony reform seems more like a “when” question, rather than an “if” question.

It is easy to get into the rhythm of a long term separation. People don’t choose ‘separation limbo’, they fall into it because it is easier than confrontation. However, there are some good reasons to be cautious of long term separations.

No Fault Divorce and Taxes

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On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Monday, November 4, 2013.

Some people want to eliminate no-fault divorce in Florida. There is a belief that no-fault divorces make it too easy to destroy marriage, leading to many problems in society. Russia has a different approach: tax divorce.

The United States has a marriage penalty, in which many married couples could save tens of thousands of dollars if they’d file separately. Russia is taking it to a new level though.

Russia is considering a tax on divorcing up to 30,000 rubles (roughly $941 US) an increase of nearly 7,500%! The proposed tax would be more than the average monthly salary in Russia

As Forbes explains, the legislation has two goals: raising revenue and discouraging divorce.

The tax increase could put more than 19 billion rubles ($595 million US) back into the Russian treasury each year. That would help plug holes in the budget as concerns about Russia’s deficit continue to mount: current projections indicate that the country’s deficit will clock in at 650 billion rubles ($20.4 billion US) in 2014. The revenue raised from boosting the divorce tax would cover about 4% of the lag. Since spending is already set for 2014 and 2015 (that’s right: Russia has an actual budget on paper and we don’t), the deficit will continue to grow if there isn’t offsetting revenue – the trick, then, is to find more money.

It’s all part of the rush to morality for the country over the past few months, meant to stifle Russia’s “moral and demographic decline.”

Russia is currently experiencing a high rate of divorce, roughly a 54% divorce rate. That rate eclipses divorce rate in the U.S. of a nearly 41% divorce rate.

Ironically, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his decision to divorce his wife of thirty years, Lyudmila, in June.

Considering this latest push by the Russians to tax divorce, maybe Putin’s divorce was something practical than a love child: good ol’ tax planning.

Adultery, No Fault and Interesting Reasons To Divorce

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On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Thursday, October 31, 2013.

Florida is a No Fault state for divorce. You don’t need a reason to divorce. Still, it is interesting to know why people divorce. A recent study out of the UK reveals some surprising reasons why people divorce, and adultery is a declining factor.

It appears that couples are less likely to cite adultery as the cause of a divorce than they were 40 years ago. However, claims of “unreasonable behavior” (a British term) have skyrocketed to more than 5 million divorce cases.

Unreasonable behavior include: making a spouse feel guilty for going out with her friends; a cross-dressing husband who decided to have a sex change; and a spouse withdrawing all the family savings and burning it in the bedroom.

The Guardian newspaper reports on a survey comparing the grounds for divorce in the 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s as well as the present day.

In the 1970s, 29% of marriages ended because of adultery, the latest figures show only 15% of divorces were down to infidelity. In the 70s unreasonable behavior was cited in 28% of cases but it now accounts for almost half of all divorces (47%).

In the 1980s – the yuppie era – had the most adulterous break-ups – with nearly one in three (29%) of all divorces granted due to cheating on a partner. In the same decade, almost one in five divorces were down to the husband’s infidelity.

While you only need to allege an irretrievable break in the marriage to file for divorce in Florida, it is always interesting to see trends in divorces over time, even when they are from overseas.

The Guardian article can be read here.

CEO Divorces: Do you have to disclose divorces to shareholders?

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On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Monday, October 28, 2013.

divorced impacts everyone: the rich and poor alike. When a spouse is also the CEO of a company, are there more risks? When the CEO of Continental Resources was getting divorced, shares of his company dropped 2.9%. Conversely, when Rupert Murdoch announced his divorce, shares of News Corp gained 1.4%. Why?

In the Continental Resources case, shareholders learned that the CEO didn’t have a prenuptial agreement, and some investors feared control of his shares was at stake.

But in Rupert Murdoch’s case, the divorce announcement stressed the parties’ prenuptial agreement, that there would be no spin-offs, and a divorce would have “zero impact” on the company

A new study from Stanford Graduate School of Business has examined three potential ways in which a CEO divorce might impact the business and shareholders.

1. Loss of control or influence. A CEO might be forced to sell or transfer a portion of his or her shares as part of equitable distribution, lump sum alimony or by agreement. Selling shares can reduce a CEO’s influence and impact decisions regarding corporate strategy, asset ownership, and board composition. Shareholder reaction to loss of control will vary.

2. Divorce impacts productivity, concentration, and energy levels. Divorce is stress. Generally, it is well known that employee divorces impact their productivity. In extreme cases, the distraction of divorce can lead to premature retirement.

3. Divorce can change appetite for risk. A sudden change in wealth – through loss of equity in the company they are running or other investments outside the firm -can alter an executive’s risk appetite, and impact decision making

Is divorce still a private matter? For most people it is. But if you are the CEO of a publicly traded company, perhaps in the future your divorce might be a matter which has to be disclosed to shareholders.

The Stanford Graduate School of Business article can be read here.

Gray Divorces: Divorcing after 50

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On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Thursday, October 24, 2013.

So much for “till death do us part.” While the overall divorce rate has gone down, it’s doubled for couples over age 50. For the first time, more Americans 50 and older are divorced rather than widowed. Sociologists call them gray divorces.

In 1990, less than 3% of Americans older than 50 were divorced. By 2000, about 12% were. According to the latest Census Bureau’s estimate in the American Community Survey, in 2011 over 15% were divorced, while 13.5% were widowed.

In 1990, 1 in 10 persons who divorced was 50 or older. By 2011, according to the American Community Survey, more than 28 percent (more than 1 in 4) who said they divorced in the previous 12 months were 50 or older.

As the New York Times reports:

Researchers at Bowling Green warn that the rising divorce rate among older Americans has serious implications that go well beyond the couples themselves. Like widowhood, divorce can contribute to economic strain and poor health, placing a larger burden on children and, given shrinking family size, on institutional support from government and other sources.

“Staying together until death do us part is a bigger challenge than it used to be because we expect so much more of marriage than we did in the past, and we have so many more options when a marriage doesn’t live up to those expectations.

Think about it from this perspective:

“If you are a healthy 65, you can expect another pretty healthy 20 years. So with the kids gone, it seems more burdensome to stay in a bad relationship, or even one that has grown stale.”

Are women to blame:

Women have long been more sensitive to – or less tolerant of – a mediocre relationship than men and so another big factor is that with their increased work experience and greater sense of their own possibilities, they are less willing to just ‘wait it out.

What about the men?:

“Viagra is another reason – men are able to satisfy younger women. And people are living longer and they can get out and still have a life.”

Several other factors may be to blame, including:

  • Societal acceptance of divorce
  • Increased economic autonomy of women
  • Lengthening life expectancies
  • Less education is big risk factor
  • Shorter marriages less than 10 years.

Nonetheless, they say that if the rate remains constant, we can expect a 25 percent increase in the number of people that will experience divorce among Americans 50 and older.

Do you carry the Divorce Gene?

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On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Wednesday, October 16, 2013.

Florida is a no-fault state when it comes to divorce. This means that you do not need grounds – like “mental cruelty” or “adultery” – to file for divorce. But scientists are finding that there may be fault for broken marriages, and the fault resides in our genetic code.

One gene involved in the regulation of serotonin can predict how much our emotions affect our relationships. The study was conducted at UC Berkeley:

An enduring mystery is, what makes one spouse so attuned to the emotional climate in a marriage, and another so oblivious?” . . . “With these new genetic findings, we now understand much more about what determines just how important emotions are for different people.”

Researchers found a link between relationship fulfillment and a gene variant, or “allele,” known as 5-HTTLPR. All humans inherit a copy of this gene variant from each parent.

Study participants with two short 5-HTTLPR alleles were found to be most unhappy in their marriages when there was anger and contempt. They were most happy when there was humor and affection.

By contrast, those with one or two long alleles were far less bothered by the emotional tenor of their marriages.

“We are always trying to understand the recipe for a good relationship, and emotion keeps coming up as an important ingredient,” said Levenson, who heads up a longitudinal study that has tracked over 150 married couples for more than 20 years.

The new findings don’t mean that couples with different variations of 5-HTTLPR are incompatible, but couples with two short alleles are likelier to thrive in a good relationship and suffer in a bad one.

“Individuals with two short alleles . . . may be like hothouse flowers, blossoming in a marriage when the emotional climate is good and withering when it is bad.”

“Conversely, people with one or two long alleles are less sensitive to the emotional climate.”

Participants in the study consisted of a group of 156 middle-aged and older couples whose relationships were followed for over 20 years.

For spouses with two short 5-HTTLPR alleles (17% of the spouses studied), researchers found a strong correlation between the emotional tone of their conversations and how they felt about their marriage.

For the 83% of spouses with one or two long alleles, on the other hand, the emotional quality of their discussions bore little or no relation to their marital satisfaction over the next decade.

While we won’t argue genetic fault in divorce papers any time soon, it is interesting how the study of the human genome shows how our DNA plays a greater role in our actions than we ever thought. News about the UC Berkley study is here.

Are Rising Divorce Rates a Good Thing?

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On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Thursday, September 19, 2013.

With low tax rates, no income tax, and a pleasant climate (outside of hurricane season) Florida attracts a lot of people who settle here, and sometimes they divorce. Florida ranks roughly 8th in divorce rates in the United States.

We view divorce in Florida as a regrettable part of life. But internationally, divorce is starting to be viewed as a positive sign of social change. As Business Week reports:

A little-noticed trend is spreading in many of the world’s emerging economies: More and more people are getting divorced.

Outside of North America, Europe, and Oceania, two-thirds of the countries for which the United Nations has data saw rising divorce rates from 2007 to 2011.

According to the UN:

  • Mexico: the divorce rate has steadily climbed since the late 1970s.
  • Brazil, divorce was against the law 30 years ago, the divorce rate is now about 1.4 per thousand people.
  • China, Thailand, Iran, and South Korea, have seen more than a roughly fivefold increase in divorces over the past few decades.

What are the Reasons? As Business Week further reports:

The rise of divorce internationally is both an indicator of and force behind social changes that have improved prospects for women, reduced gender inequality, and fueled development. All of which suggests that the more people are able to get out of bad marriages, the better off their societies are likely to be.

So, the more common divorce becomes in a society, the less of a stigma it’s likely to be. Conversely, divorce causes greater unhappiness in societies where it’s rare. The period before a divorce people report low life satisfaction, but the period after it is comparatively satisfactory, especially for women.

In the developing world, increased divorce rates have mirrored improvement in measures of gender equality.

In Brazil, the Rede Globo channel broadcasts a slate of soap operas that feature powerful female leads who work, make investment decisions, and commit infidelities as frequently as their male counterparts. During the 1970s and ’80s, as Rede Globo’s reach expanded across the country, the divorce rate went up while fertility rates went down, according to researchers from the Inter-American Development Bank.

Strange Reasons to Divorce and the No Fault Concept

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On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Monday, September 16, 2013.

The official term for divorce in Florida is “dissolution of marriage”, and you don’t need fault as a grounds for divorce. Florida abolished fault as a ground for divorce. This means you no longer have to prove a reason for the divorce, like infidelity. Instead, you just need to state under oath that your marriage is “irretrievably broken.”

Despite the concept of no-fault divorce, very often people blame others for their marriage ending. Recently, a Rhode Island man, whose marriage ended, filed a federal lawsuit seeking to silence the bells of the Catholic church next door to him.

John Devaney claims the ringing of the bells at St. Thomas More Catholic church contributed to the failure of his marriage and are disrupting the quality of his life.

In China, one man’s snoring was so disruptive it prompted his wife to file for divorce. In the filing, she claimed that she hasn’t gotten a full night’s sleep since they married. She also mentioned that the man’s heavy snoring made her ill and caused her to lose a significant amount of weight.

In Iran, a man filed to divorce his wife because of her snoring; she admitted to drugging him with sleeping pills at the beginning of their marriage so he wouldn’t notice her snoring habit.

One woman got married at age 30 but told her husband she was only 24. Ten years into their marriage, in November 2007, he found out about the lie–and asked for a divorce.

A pet bird started to say things like “divorce” or “be patient” and the bird’s phrases caused one woman to think her husband was cheating on her and filed for divorce.

In Florida, either spouse can file for the dissolution of marriage. You must prove that a marriage exists, one party has been a Florida resident for six months before filing the petition, and the marriage is irretrievably broken.

However, fault may be considered under certain circumstances in the award of alimony, equitable distribution of marital assets and liabilities, and determination of parental responsibility.