Archives: Spousal Support

It is rare that the U.S. Supreme Court rules on issues in family law, but one exception is for employment benefits. On Monday, the high court heard oral arguments in Hillman v. Maretta, Case No. 11-1221.  According to the court’s summary, the husband died before changing beneficiaries on a life insurance policy from his first […]

Today, I received a notification that a Terry Powers had commented on my Friday blog post entitled “Divorce from Hell.”

Some times the lessons from caselaw could not be more obvious. A recent decision from the Wisconsin Court of Appeals provides such a teachable moment.

A recent court of appeals case, Lemke v. Lemke, raises the question of when judges can bring their own experiences into play in making decisions.

It’s rare that a discretionary order, such as maintenance, is reversed on appeal. It’s even rarer that the Wisconsin Court of Appeals goes to such length in reversing the order that it takes special concern to assure that on remand, the prevailing party on appeal can have a new judge hear the matter. Both occur in Lemke v. Lemke,

As I said in my previous post, the recent Court of Appeals case, Tierney v. Berger  appears to have corrected a silly rule in Wisconsin law:  A prohibition against “mixed” orders, which is an order which includes dollar-expressed and percentage-expressed support orders. Writing that column made me think of other silly laws in this field.  […]

While the court gets to the proper result (in my never-to-be-humble opinion) in Tierney v. Berger, it does so in a convoluted way.

Lawyers, especially courts in a common law system, need to be careful of the words they choose.

Is maintenance still relevant in the 21st Century? A recent article in The New York Times raises that issue, discussed how various states are considering and some enacting laws designed to make maintenance or alimony more equitable.

This article will first examine the historical development of the concept of impermissible double counting, next examine the recent case (McReath v. McReath) and suggest what courts should do if the issue presents itself.