Springstead v. Springstead, 97-1501
| Decision Date | 18 September 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. 97-1501,97-1501 |
| Citation | 717 So.2d 203 |
| Parties | 23 Fla. L. Weekly D2155 Martha S. SPRINGSTEAD, Appellant, v. Richard W. SPRINGSTEAD, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Robert J. Shapiro of Holland & Knight LLP, Tampa, and Allyson Hughes of Allyson Hughes, P.A., New Port Richey, for Appellant.
Thomas R. Eineman of Law Office of Thomas R. Eineman, Spring Hill, for Appellee.
Martha Springstead, the former wife of appellee Richard Springstead, appeals the trial court's order reducing her alimony award by $500 each month based upon her two-year cohabitation with a male companion. She argues that the evidence before the trial court failed to show a change of circumstances sufficient to justify reduction of alimony. We agree and reverse.
The parties' marriage of twenty-seven years was dissolved by final judgment entered on October 5, 1992. The final judgment required the former husband, an orthopedic surgeon, to pay the former wife, a homemaker, $5000 per month in permanent periodic alimony until the former wife remarried or the death of either party. The former husband moved to modify the award of permanent periodic alimony based on allegations that the former wife was living with a male companion and that her needs had decreased since the divorce.
The order modifying the final judgment of dissolution of marriage made the following findings of fact that are relevant to this appeal: 1) the former wife had cohabitated with an adult male for at least two years; 2) at least $500 per month of the alimony paid by the former husband was used by the former wife to support her live-in companion and 3) the former wife ceased cohabitating with her male companion six months after the filing of the former husband's petition for modification. The trial judge reduced the former husband's monthly alimony obligation by $500 retroactive to the filing date of the supplemental petition for modification, thus obligating the former wife to the former husband for $11,500 in overpayment of alimony.
Once instituted, permanent periodic alimony can only be modified when the complaining party has clearly shown a substantial change in the circumstances occurring after the entry of the order awarding alimony. Canakaris v. Canakaris, 382 So.2d 1197, 1201-02 (Fla.1980). In Pimm v. Pimm, 601 So.2d 534, 536 (Fla.1992), the supreme court explained:
[I]n petitioning to modify alimony, the moving party must show three fundamental prerequisites. First, there must be a substantial change in circumstances. Second, the change was not contemplated at the time of the final judgment of dissolution. Third, the change is sufficient, material, involuntary, and permanent in nature.
In Waldman v. Waldman, 520 So.2d 87, 89 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988), the court noted that "[t]he change in financial circumstances must be meaningful, relating to the needs of the spouse receiving the alimony and the ability of the other spouse to pay."
As a general rule, how the recipient spouse chooses to spend the alimony is irrelevant in a modification action. For example, an ex-spouse's use of alimony payments to support adult children does not justify termination of alimony. See Withers v. Withers, 390 So.2d 453 (Fla. 2d DCA 1980). Similarly, a receiving spouse can squander alimony payments on gambling and liquor without these acts resulting in a downward modification of alimony. See Phillippi v. Phillippi, 148 Fla. 393, 4 So.2d 465 (1941); Horner v. Horner, 222 So.2d 791 (Fla. 2d DCA 1969).
However, where cohabitation is involved, modification has sometimes been deemed proper due to the financial contributions to or from the receiving spouse's live-in companion. 1 Nevertheless, modification of...
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...e.g., Reno v. Reno, 884 So. 2d 462 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004); Bridges v. Bridges, 842 So. 2d 983 (Fla. 1st DCA 2003); Springstead v. Springstead, 717 So. 2d 203 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998); DePoorter v. DePoorter, 509 So. 2d 1141 (Fla. 1st DCA 1987)." Buxton, 963 So. 2d at 951. But "cohabitation [could] ......
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...generally do not support a modification," citing Tinsley v. Tinsley, 502 So.2d 997 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987), and Springstead v. Springstead, 717 So.2d 203 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998).6 Apart from the doubtful formulation of the principle he sought to apply, neither case supports the trial judge's decisio......
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