If you have questions about divorce, legal separation, alimony pendente lite, or alimony in Connecticut, please feel free to call the experienced divorce attorneys at Maya Murphy, P.C. in Westport today at 203-221-3100 or email Joseph C. Maya, Esq. at JMaya@Mayalaw.com.

A good starting question for the debate on alimony reform in Connecticut is: What, if anything, about Connecticut law on alimony actually needs to be changed? It is already gender neutral. Complaints about lifetime alimony awards make for a good sound bite, but actual lifetime awards are increasingly rare. Even where lifetime alimony is awarded, the preference under Connecticut law is for modifiability. The tone of the debate on alimony reform should not be set by the complaints and anecdotes of an angry, unrepresentative few. To embrace that agenda would be to cheapen the obligations attendant on the institution of marriage itself in order to allow former spouses to be cast aside with greater ease.

Alimony is "the obligation of support that spouses assume toward each other by virtue of the marriage." Rubin v. Rubin, 204 Conn. 224, 234 (1987). Alimony is the money that former spouses who have given up careers — and the children they care for — live on each day. No two alimony cases are exactly alike because no two marriages or financial situations are exactly alike. Judges in Connecticut award alimony by applying an array of statutory factors. They need the discretion currently allowed to them by statute in order to address the uniqueness of each case. Calculation of alimony is not cookie-cutter law, where a judge or lawyer can just replace names and plug numbers into a formula. Any change to this institution must be premised on actual evidence and should be carefully tailored to appreciate how individualized the process must be.

In March 2012, a bill was introduced in the Connecticut legislature entitled: "An Act Concerning the Payment of Alimony and Child Support." This bill, also known as House Bill 5509, was the handiwork of a small group of individuals known as CTAR. The group is using a non-profit 501(c)(4) status and a lobbyist to advance an agenda which is personal in nature and will not serve the vast majority of citizens. This group's use of the term "alimony reform" carries a loaded meaning, i.e., "alimony reform in favor of payors." The bill CTAR put forward through their lobbyist was so one-sided in favor of alimony payors as to be completely unworkable, and it met the quick end it deserved. It would have severely penalized alimony recipients and children.

CTAR has given every indication that this bill or some derivative shall be put forward again in the future. Various organizations and private citizens worked together in broad opposition to House Bill 5509 the first time it was presented. Should that bill or anything akin to it be reintroduced, there is an active community willing to band together again to oppose it.

Whether and to what extent there should be reform of divorce laws in Connecticut is an issue that deserves to be addressed from all points of view. It cannot be determined by the unilateral agenda of a group like CTAR, which has already shown its contempt for any other perspective. The organizations listed above are already working to explore this issue. The goal is a symposium on the 40th anniversary of the so-called "no-fault" law of 1973 to be held in February-April 2013. The solution is not an incarnation of House Bill 5509. Examples of the problems with this bill are set forth below.

Mechanical Process

House Bill 5509 sought to make alimony a mechanical process, with each change to existing law carefully calculated to favor payors of support. For example, the bill would have required a court to exclude from consideration for alimony "income which the court has already considered in setting a child support order." Since child support orders must consider all income, that change would effectively eliminate orders of both alimony and child support, including unallocated orders and their associated tax benefits. Consider the catastrophic effects of this provision on the household of a single mother with no source of income other than what she is paid in alimony and child support. Under House Bill 5509, she could only receive child suport, which is not calculated to completely provide for her support as well — that duty of spousal maintenance flows from alimony.

CTAR's bill would also have changed the definition of alimony, so that the "goal" of alimony would be "allowing the spouse who is the recipient of alimony to become self-sufficient." Self-sufficiency may be a worthy goal in some cases, but it would be myopic as a universal goal. That would set the stage for one spouse to reap all the benefits of a career and earning capacity developed over the course of a marriage, without taking into account the other spouse's sacrifices and nonfinancial contributions, such as raising the parties' children. Should a working spouse be entitled to luxuriate in an advantaged financial lifestyle, while the other spouse who spent 10-20 years caring for the parties' children starts life over again at a minimum wage job in the hope of attaining "self-sufficiency?"

The failed bill would also have capped the amount of alimony as follows: "the amount of alimony awarded pursuant to this section shall not exceed thirty to thirty-five per cent of the difference between the gross income [sic] of the parties, established at the time the alimony order is issued." Compare the language in House Bill 5509 to the Massachusetts statutes from which House Bill 5509 drew heavily. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 208, Section 53 states: "the amount of alimony should generally not exceed the recipient's need or 30-35 per cent of the difference between the parties gross incomes established at the time of the order being issued." The language is almost identical, but mysteriously the word "generally" disappeared from the Connecticut bill as did the recipient's need as an alternative basis for the award.

This selective editing made the proposed Connecticut law even more draconian than what was adopted in Massachusetts, especially since other concepts from Massachusetts alimony law were completely disregarded (such as the establishment of different types of alimony). Also, Massachusetts law on this subject is completely unproven, as it only went into effect in March 2012.

Sliding Scale

CTAR's bill also would have limited alimony awards to half the term of the marriage. In comparison, Massachusetts recently adopted a sliding scale for alimony duration. At the low end, marriages of five years or fewer were limited to awards of half the length of the marriage. For marriages of 20 years or more, alimony could be awarded indefinitely. A Massachusetts court also has greater discretion in deviating from the sliding scale than what was proposed for Connecticut.

The Connecticut bill would also have caused chaos throughout the state because the durational changes would have been retroactive. Motions to modify alimony would have flooded the Connecticut courts to strike down previously entered court orders, regardless of the original basis for those orders.

For good measure, the alimony reform group also attempted to create "trust accounts" for minor children that would give payors of child support greater access and control over what recipients of child support do with the money. Not only would that have imposed an impossible burden on child support recipients and spawned needless litigation, but could well have run afoul of federal child support oversight laws. There are a litany of other one-sided changes which the CTAR sought to introduce willy-nilly into Connecticut law by means of their bill. Those are too lengthy to detail here but include: automatic termination of alimony upon the payor reaching "retirement age"; changing the focus of alimony modification based on cohabitation to personal issues such as "community reputation"; and various ways to exclude payors' income from consideration for alimony.

To lawyers and legislators, beware of being sold a quick-fix bill of goods under the misnomer of "alimony reform." Whether and to what extent Connecticut divorce law, including alimony, needs to change is an issue that deserves careful examination and study, such as in the proposed symposium

For a free consultation, please do not hesitate to call the experienced family law and divorce attorneys at Maya Murphy, P.C. in Westport, CT at 203-221-3100. We may also be reached for inquiries by email at JMaya@mayalaw.com.

Source: Arnold H. Rutkin, Alexander J. Cuda, The Myth Of Alimony Reform; Proposed bill would have been unfair to recipients, children, CONN LAW TRIB (Aug. 20, 2012)