Caracristi v. Caracristi, 75-284
Decision Date | 07 January 1976 |
Docket Number | No. 75-284,75-284 |
Citation | 324 So.2d 634 |
Parties | Eileen Deady CARACRISTI, Appellant, v. Virginius Z. CARACRISTI, Appellee. |
Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Michael R. N. McDonnell, of Brown, Smith, Young & Pelham, Tallahassee, for appellant.
Charles R. Holley, Naples, for appellee.
Appellant Eileen Caracristi, ex-wife of appellee Virginius Z. Caracristi, brings this interlocutory appeal from an order striking her motion filed pursuant to Rule 1.540, R.C.P., for relief from a final judgment which denied her periodic alimony. We reverse.
On March 11, 1974, a final judgment was entered dissolving the marriage of the parties, dividing the jointly held assets, awarding appellant the marital home as lump sum alimony, but denying her periodic alimony. Following the filing of an unsuccessful appeal to this court 1, appellant filed the aforementioned Rule 1.540 motion. This motion alleged that appellee-husband had falsely testified at the final hearing misrepresenting his true income and ability to pay alimony and that evidence thereof was newly discovered as to appellant. Appellee responded with a motion to strike. On January 31, 1975, the lower court granted appellee's motion to strike without an evidentiary hearing expressly for the reason that, in the final judgment, the court (another judge) specifically found that the wife was 'not entitled to an award of rehabilitative or permanent alimony and that (she) is able to take care of herself on the income she now enjoys.' The court reasoned that the husband's ability to pay alimony is therefore irrelevant, there being no need; and thus, even assuming the truth of the allegations in appellant's motion, it would not have resulted in a different determination of alimony. We disagree.
In the first instance, it is rudimentary that in a marriage dissolution proceeding the entitlement of a wife to alimony is dependent on three criteria: (1) The wife's needs; (2) her standard of living during marriage, and (3) the husband's ability to pay. 2 In the ordinary case, as here, particularly where the marital history of the parties demonstrates that the wife's needs and the parties' standard of living are primarily dependent upon the financial contributions of the husband, all these criteria are interrelated and interdependent. Certainly, for example, with respect to a standard of living, a true picture of the husband's enhanced ability would tend to corroborate a higher...
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McAllister v. McAllister
...to reasonable expectations from her own income, and (3) the standard of living enjoyed by the wife during marriage. Caracristi v. Caracristi, 324 So.2d 634 (Fla.2nd DCA 1976). In turn, these three criteria have, in developing case law, been supplemented by six more: (4) the length of the ma......
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Lockwood v. Lockwood
...to Section 61.08, Florida Statutes (1975). See, e. g., Hausman v. Hausman, 330 So.2d 833 (Fla.3d DCA 1976); Caracristi v. Caracristi, 324 So.2d 634 (Fla.2d DCA 1976); Collins v. Collins, 323 So.2d 583 (Fla.3d DCA 1975); and Hagen v. Hagen, 308 So.2d 41 (Fla.3d DCA 1975). In the instant case......
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McCloskey v. McCloskey
...reasonable expectations from her own income, and (3) the standard of living enjoyed by the wife during marriage. Caracristi v. Caracristi, 324 So.2d 634 (Fla. 2nd DCA 1976). We can easily dispose of the first two criteria in this case. There can be no doubt of the husband's ability to pay v......
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Hamblen v. Hamblen, 79-1075
...the wife, and the shared standard of living during the marriage. See Sisson v. Sisson, 336 So.2d 1129 (Fla.1976); Caracristi v. Caracristi, 324 So.2d 634 (Fla. 2d DCA 1976). Below, the award is well below the wife's needs, the husband's ability to pay, and the shared standard. We hold the a......