Craig v. Craig, U--345

• Decision Date: 25 July 1974
• Docket Number: No. U--345,U--345
• Citation: 298 So.2d 189
• Parties: A. H. CRAIG, Appellant, v. Catharine S. CRAIG, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 189

298 So.2d 189

A. H. CRAIG, Appellant, v. Catharine S. CRAIG, Appellee.

No. U--345.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

July 25, 1974.

Edward S. Jaffry, Tallahassee, for appellant.

Wesley A. Fink, Fink, Loucks, Foxman & Woerner, Daytona Beach, for appellee.

RAWLS, Chief Judge.

The order of the trial judge requiring appellant husband to continue paying permanent alimony to the wife is challenged by this appeal.

The parties were divorced on August 11, 1969. A property settlement agreement was incorporated in the final judgment; material parts of same being: custody of the parties' two minor children awarded to the wife; $30.00 per week support money for each minor child payable by the husband; weekly alimony in the sum of $120.00 payable to the wife by the husband; and conveyance of the marital dwelling and four additional lots by the husband to the wife.

Material changes in the circumstances were proven by the husband upon his petition for modification. The minor children are no longer living with the wife. The husband had expended $13,000.00 during the period of July, 1972, to July, 1973, for clothing, medical, automobile and college expenses of the children. ¹ In order to 'help pay up some bills and to take care of the children during the college year', the husband had recently placed a second mortgage in the principal sum of $10,000.00 on his home. The overall evidence reflected that the husband's income was substantially the same as when the parties were divorced in 1969. ² The wife, a school teacher for 14 years, had received a substantial increase in her salary and was earning in excess of $10,000.00 per year. Other than the approximately $5,000.00 owed on her home, payable in monthly installments of $127.91 per month, the wife has no substantial debts. ³

It was upon the foregoing basic facts that the trial court entered its order modifying the 1969 final judgment reducing weekly alimony payments from $120.00 per week to $95.00 per week until November, 1974, and from that date to $50.00 per week.

Kahn v. Kahn, 78 So.2d 367 (Fla.1955), is the benchmark decision for the modern view of alimony as being rehabilitative. There the Supreme Court stated:

'And, indeed, until recent years, a divorced wife had little prospect of being able to work and earn a livelihood, and it was essential to a well-ordered society that she be appropriately maintained by her estranged husband so that she would not become a charge on the community. Times have now changed. The broad, practically unlimited opportunities for women in the business world of today are a matter of common knowledge. Thus, in an era where the opportunities for self-support by the wife are so abundant, the fact that the marriage has been brought to an end because of the fault of the husband does not necessarily entitle the wife to be forever supported by a former husband who has little, if any, more economic advantages than she has.'

In analyzing the Kahn case and its applicability to current conditions, Judge Wigginton, speaking for this Court in Beard v. Beard, 262 So.2d 269 (1 Fla.App.1972), said:

'Whether the marriage continues to exist or is severed through the device of judicial decree, the woman continues to be as fully equipped as the man to earn a living and provide for her...