Laz v. Laz

• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: QUINCE.
• Citation: Laz v. Laz, 727 So.2d 966 (Fla. App. 1998)
• Decision Date: 04 December 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-02100., No. 97-01722
• Parties: Camille C. LAZ, Appellant, v. Andre L. LAZ, Appellee.

727 So.2d 966

Camille C. LAZ, Appellant, v. Andre L. LAZ, Appellee.

Nos. 97-01722, 97-02100.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

December 4, 1998.

Rehearing Denied March 17, 1999.

Cynthia L. Greene of Law Offices of Cynthia L. Greene, P.A., Miami, for Appellant.

John R. Asbell and James F. Caudill, of Asbell, Coleman & Ho, P.A., Naples, for Appellee. QUINCE, Judge.

Camille C. Laz challenges the trial court's award of alimony in this dissolution of marriage appeal. We reverse the amount of alimony awarded because the trial court improperly imputed income to the wife and improperly calculated the income of the husband. In all other respects, we affirm.

The Lazes were married in 1961 when the husband was a junior in medical school. During the marriage, the wife, who had completed one year of college, was primarily a homemaker, seeing to the needs of the husband and their four children. The husband was the provider; he was and is a physician in the private practice of medicine. When the children were older, the wife began to pursue part-time activities outside the home. First, she and a friend opened a cooking school. After the children went to college, the wife turned her cooking skills into a part-time catering business, but she earned less than $10,000.00 per year at this enterprise. Sometime later, she opened a deli with her son. After four years the deli was sold for the amount of the initial investment. Over the nearly thirty-five years the parties were married, they accumulated assets worth between $1,572,066.00 and $1,856,942.00.

In determining the amount of permanent periodic alimony to which the wife was entitled, the trial court used the figure of $310,000.00 a year as the husband's income and imputed $1,000.00 a month in income to the wife. The accountant for the wife testified that the husband's 1995 income, when adjusted to reflect certain benefits, was $397,000.00. The accountant who testified on behalf of the husband indicated the 1995 income with benefits added was $340,000.00.

This was a long-term marriage with a wife in need of permanent periodic alimony and a husband with the financial ability to pay alimony. The wife argues the trial court erred in awarding only $7,000.00 a month in permanent periodic alimony. We agree because the alimony calculation was based on an incorrect determination of the incomes of the parties. See Gildea v. Gildea, 593 So.2d 1212 (Fla. 2d DCA 1992). Although there is evidence in the record that the wife at various times engaged in at least some part-time employment outside of the home, i.e., the cooking school, catering and the deli business, the wife was unemployed at the time of the final hearing. In addition, there is no evidence in the record to indicate that the wife could now find gainful employment (she was fifty-seven years old at the time of the final hearing). Thu...