Pfohl v. Pfohl

• Decision Date: 26 April 1977
• Docket Number: No. 76--170,76--170
• Citation: 345 So.2d 371
• Parties: Margaret Mary PFOHL, Appellant, v. Roger Lee PFOHL, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 371

345 So.2d 371

Margaret Mary PFOHL, Appellant, v. Roger Lee PFOHL, Appellee.

No. 76--170.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

April 26, 1977.

Rehearing Denied May 23, 1977.

Frates, Floyd Pearson, Stewart, Richman & Greer and James B. Tilghman, Jr., Miami, and Walter D. Crane, Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.

Cypen & Nevins, Miami, for appellee.

Before HAVERFIELD and HUBBART, JJ., and CHARLES CARROLL (Ret.), Associate Judge.

HUBBART, Judge.

This is an action for dissolution of marriage in which the husband was awarded lump sum and rehabilitative alimony as well as attorneys' fees. The wife appeals and the husband cross appeals, raising questions which go to the propriety and sufficiency of such awards.

On May 28, 1966, the parties were married. At the time of the marriage, the wife owned a one third interest in a trucking company given to her by her father, which interest she sold in 1972 for seven million dollars. The husband had to assets going into the marriage except for a one half interest in one hundred shares of Sears Roebuck stock. He had been employed for four and one half years as a toy salesman for Strombecker Toy Co. earning a salary of approximately $9,000--$10,000 a year plus expenses and bonus. He resigned this job after one and a half years of marriage to satisfy the wife's wishes. She did not like his traveling which was necessary to pursue his line of work, and refused to move to New York with him to accept a promotion. Prior to the marriage, he had finished three years of college and received an honorable discharge from the marines. The couple had two sons, now ages 8 and 2.

The parties lived a life of extreme luxury and comfort during a marriage which lasted nine years prior to the parties' final separation. The wife supported the family at first through contributions from her father, and from 1972--75 from her own separate estate.

Both the husband and wife had an unlimited joint checking account. Both had access to the wife's extensive properties: a one hundred acre farm in Elgin, Illinois, purchased for $500,000; a five bedroom house in Chicago; and two homes in Bal Harbour, Florida, purchased for $140,000 and $60,000 respectively. Both had access to a six bedroom home and an eighty acre farm in Crystal Lake, Illinois, in which the wife gave the husband one half interest.

The husband had all the major credit cards with unlimited credit plus charge accounts at many luxury stores where he regularly shopped. He maintained extensive clothing in their Florida and Illinois homes. Several times each year be paid substantial entry fees so he could participate in celebrity golf tournaments such as the Bob Hope and Andy Williams Classics.

The parties were members of seven luxury country clubs in Chicago and Miami for which the wife paid substantial initial membership sums and all the subsequent dues and bills incurred. They traveled extensively throughout the country and the world, and because of the wife's substantial interest in race horses, routinely traveled to the Kentucky Derby and other races in New York, California and Illinois. They were attended by servants in their homes in Florida and Illinois. They entertained extensively at home and various clubs at which they were members. They had full access to the seventy-five foot family yacht on which they maintained a full crew, contributing $3,000 a month to the operation of the vessel. In addition, they had two late model Cadillacs, a Buick stationwagon and a speedboat.

The husband estimated that his living expenses during the marriage were over $5,000 a month. The wife estimated that the family's total monthly living expenses were approximately $15,000 including income taxes. The wife could not have provided the foregoing fantasy-land existence for the husband on anything less than enormous resources. At the time of the final hearing, she had a net worth of $4,250,000 including cash and marketable securities of $3,325,000 plus an annual net income of $200,000.

During the marriage the husband dabbled, but never seriously participated in various business ventures provided by his wife's family. He was a figurehead president of the Antioch Insurance Agency for four years. Following this venture, he was a treasurer and director in the Antioch Savings and Loan Association from which he was eventually removed for failure to attend meetings.

The parties ceased living together as husband and wife on May 6, 1975. At that time the wife forbade the husband to return to their home in Florida or to live in any other of her properties. She removed his clothes therefrom and the husband has remained unemployed living with friends at a drastically reduced living style ever since. He unsuccessfully sought employment on several occasions in Florida and Chicago. There is evidence that the husband presently suffers from a mental disorder requiring professional treatment, but that at 37 he is in excellent physical health.

At the time of the dissolution, the husband held the following assets, all provided to him by the wife during the marriage: an undivided one half interest in an eighty acre farm in Crystal Lake, Illinois, his interest valued at $160,000; a 1974 and 1975 Cadillac valued together at a total of $12,000; and a twenty-five foot power boat valued at $6,000. In addition, he leaves the marriage with his original one half interest in one hundred shares of Sears Roebuck stock valued at $6,000 and an 80 percent ownership interest in a Ft. Lauderdale lounge known as the 'Filling Station.' The husband owes the wife $60,000 for the purchase of this lounge which at the time of the final hearing was up for sale for $110,000. He, therefore, has approximately $200,000 in assets, almost all of which are non-liquid and non-income producing.

The wife filed a petition for dissolution of marriage seeking the dissolution of the marriage, custody of the parties' two minor children and an adjudication of her rights as to the $60,000 loan which she had made to the husband. The husband answered denying that the marriage was irretrievably broken as well as the allegations concerning the loan. He requested alimony, attorneys fees and suit monies. The wife replied denying the husband's need for alimony, suit monies, and attorneys fees, which reply was amended to assert adultery as a defense to his claim for alimony, suit monies and attorneys fees.

The case came on for final hearing in which the trial court heard extensive testimony and reviewed certain physical evidence. Thereafter, the court entered a final judgment dissolving the marriage, awarding custody of the children to the wife with rights of visitation for the husband and requiring the husband to pay the wife $60,000 from his share of the proceeds obtained from the sale of the 'Filling Station' lounge in Ft. Lauderdale. These parts of the final judgment are not contested by either party on this appeal.

The court further ordered the wife to pay the husband $30,000 lump sum alimony and $5,000 a month rehabilitative alimony for eighteen months. Both parties contest these awards.

At a subsequent hearing, the court took testimony and heard arguments as to reasonable attorneys fees. Thereafter the court awarded $30,000 in attorneys fees and $1,191.36 in suit monies for the husband. The wife contests this award.

I

The major question presented for review is whether it is an abuse of discretion in a dissolution of marriage action for a trial court to award the husband $30,000 in lump sum alimony and $5,000 a month rehabilitative alimony for 18 months when: (1) the wife has a net worth of $4,250,000; (2) the parties shared an extremely high standard of living at first supported by the wife based on contributions to her from her father and thereafter based entirely on her own wealth during a nine year marriage; (3) the husband is 37 years old, unemployed with limited employment skills, in good physical, but impaired mental health, and in possession of approximately $200,000 assets most of which were received during the marriage from the wife.

Both parties contend that the trial judge abused his discretion. The wife argues that the husband is not entitled to any alimony; the husband argues that the amount of lump sum alimony is inadequate and that permanent, rather than rehabilitative alimony should have been awarded. We reject all these contentions and hold that the alimony awards herein were well within the discretion of the trial judge to make under the circumstances of this case.

A

Alimony has been traditionally considered an allowance which a husband is required to make in order to maintain his wife in the event of separation or divorce and is based on the common law obligation of a husband to support his wife. Floyd v. Floyd, 91 Fla. 910, 108 So. 896 (1926). In determining the amount of such alimony, the courts have established two criteria: (1) the husband's ability to pay, and (2) the needs of the wife, taking into consideration the standard of living shared by the parties to the marriage. Sisson v. Sisson, 336 So.2d 1129 (Fla.1976); Firestone v. Firestone, 263 So.2d 223 (Fla.1972); Sharpe v. Sharpe, 267 So.2d 665 (Fla.3d DCA 1972); Carmel v. Carmel, 282 So.2d 6 (Fla.3d DCA 1973).

Quite properly, these are criteria of the broadest nature, not susceptible to a precise formula automatically translatable into dollars and cents. We are dealing with a tragically human problem which touches peoples' lives during a period of immense personal crisis. One cannot dispense substantial justice in such explosive cases as if the answer lies in a computer or a rigid rule book. Mathematical exactness is neither possible nor desirable. The trial court of necessity has a wide discretion to apply the established criteria in fashioning a fair and equitable alimony award in the infinite variety of cases which come before it. Absent a showing that the trial court exercised this discretion...