Schiff v. Schiff
| Decision Date | 29 May 1951 |
| Citation | 54 So.2d 36 |
| Parties | SCHIFF v. SCHIFF. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Loftin, Anderson, Scott, McCarthy & Preston, William C. Steel, Miami, for appellant.
George C. McCaughan, Miami, for appellee.
Affirmed.
On Rehearing
May 5, 1951, the majority of this court in a Per Curiam order affirmed the chancellor's decree granting the petition of appellee to reduce the alimony of appellant, his former wife, from sixty-eight to forty-five dollars per week. I joined the majority in the order making that reduction.
On petition for rehearing, I am convinced that I was in error in so doing. The petition for rehearing was less than five pages, but it met every requirement of good pleading. It was concise but full aplenty, went straight to the issue, and was a very effective pleading. It impresses one with the danger of burdening a brief, pleading or record with unnecessary details that may tend to conceal rather than clarify the issue in the case. Paraphrasing a line of wisdom from one of the old masters--when one's 'reasons are as two grains to wheat hid in two bushels of straw,' even a judge may miss the wheat no matter how diligently he may search. Abraham Lincoln named it well in one of his addresses to the jury--now, gentlemen, let us brush aside the dead wood and get right down to hard pan. That is what the petition for rehearing did. Every pleading, record and brief should follow this pattern.
Another contributing factor to my error was the announcement by counsel that 'this whole case is a simple accounting problem.' Accounting a man's ability to pay alimony means little more than to add his sources of income, subtract his business expenses, estimate the living requirements of each, then award the wife a reasonable sum from the husband's balance. I thought any chancellor could do that but it now appears that when it comes to adding and subtracting money some of them are not experts. So much for my excuse for falling into error. Now let us see what the record shows.
Mr. and Mrs. Schiff made an agreement for alimony and support after due deliberation and consultation with counsel. Following said agreement, Mrs. Schiff secured a divorce and Mr. Schiff secured a new wife. The alimony agreement was made part of the divorce decree. The chancellor may on examination of the husband's sources of income modify alimony decrees if there is a strong showing that the husband's ability to pay has depreciated. Section 65.15, F.S.A. On consideration of the petition for rehearing, in the light of the record, I am now convinced that no such showing is made.
The law governing a man's obligation to an ex wife as contrasted with that he owes a wife in esse has not been extensively explored in this country. Men generally avoid the complications arising from such matrimonial...
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