Quinn v. Quinn, 88-0709
| Decision Date | 11 January 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 88-0709,88-0709 |
| Citation | 14 Fla. L. Weekly 166,536 So.2d 1184 |
| Parties | 14 Fla. L. Weekly 166 William Francis QUINN, Appellant, v. Sheila M. QUINN, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Palm Beach County; Richard B. burk, judge.
Jane Kreusler-Walsh of Klein & Beranek, P.A., and Ronald Sales, West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Susan J. O'Hara of Susan J. O'Hara, P.A., Palm Beach, for appellee.
We affirm the award of permanent alimony, and because we see no consistent pattern to the wife's income-earning ability, we also affirm the amount thereof as being within the court's discretion. Canakaris v. Canakaris, 382 So.2d 1197, 1202 (Fla.1980).
GLICKSTEIN, J., concurs specially with opinion.
In Canakaris v. Canakaris, 382 So.2d 1197, 1201-02 (Fla.1980), the court set forth the criteria to be used in establishing the need of one spouse for permanent periodic alimony and the ability of the other to provide it. These include:
1. The parties' earning ability, age, health and education.
2. The duration of the parties' marriage.
3. The parties' standard of living during the marriage.
4. The value of the parties' estates.
Affirmance is appropriate here in light of the above criteria and the trial judge's discretionary power. The trial court's findings include the following:
The parties were married on October 8, 1963 in Marshall, Illinois when the Wife was nineteen and the Husband was twenty-one while both were students at Ohio State University. Upon marriage, the Wife discontinued her education to work to support the Husband in his education. As a result of the efforts of both the Husband and Wife, the Husband obtained a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. During the course of this twenty-four plus year marriage, the parties have had four children. The youngest turned eighteen November 24, 1987. Kelly Anne still resides in the family home as does one of the parties' other children who is recuperating from drug dependency. Throughout the course of the marriage, the Wife has been a dutiful helpmate and homemaker while the husband has been a good provider and father. Both parties are in good health. The Husband is employed as an engineer with Pratt and Whitney Aircraft where he is presently earning approximately $64,380.00 a year. The wife has obtained a real estate broker-associate license and has in the past eight years been in real estate sales. She earned approximately $34,000.00 working full time in 1985 and for the first ten months of 1987 while working part-time earned approximately $18,300.00. The Wife also has in the past qualified as and has been engaged as a mortgage broker.
(Emphasis added.) The trial court then itemized the values of the parties' respective estates, and evened them up by means of lump sum alimony. The wife was awarded permanent periodic alimony of $2,100 per month.
The emphasized portion of the trial court's findings points out a common experience namely, the wife's hitching her wagon to the husband's economic star while giving up her own career aspirations in order to be the homemaker, only to find--in middle age--that the star has become unhitched.
Professor Joan M. Krauskopf, in her article, Rehabilitative Alimony; Uses and Abuses of Limited Duration Alimony, 21 Family Law Quarterly 573 (1988), writes apropos this pandemic situation:
1. PURPOSES FOR INDEFINITE ALIMONY
Although no consensus has been reached concerning the purposes served by modern indefinite alimony or maintenance, there is a remarkably high consistency among goals sometimes stated and the factors often considered relevant to making the alimony decision. Those same goals and factors are consistently mentioned in recent cases challenging limited alimony.
The two most often-expressed purposes are:
1. To compensate for benefits conferred on the other spouse by being responsible for homemaking and child rearing. The primary benefit is increased earning capacity of the other spouse who, while enjoying family life, was free to devote all productive time to income production.
2. To compensate for the opportunity costs of homemaking. This is primarily lost earning capacity through years of major...
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Kanouse v. Kanouse
...compensated for lost career opportunities and the transfer of earning power to her husband during the marriage. Quinn v. Quinn, 536 So.2d 1184 (Fla. 4th DCA 1989). This is not to suggest that she must be awarded permanent periodic alimony rather than rehabilitative alimony. See Miller, "A M......