Divorce Lawyers Phoenix

In determining the propriety or impropriety of divorce decree ordering conveyance of property under former section 17 of the Divorce Act, the authority of the court was based upon powers conferred by statute rather than upon general equity powers.

The trial court was not barred by res judicata from considering facts that were new since the last hearing in relation to the propriety of the maintenance award.
Res judicata and collateral estoppel did not bar husband’s action for arrearage in wife’s contributions to children’s educational expenses.  Wife’s action seeking an increase in child support had no effect on husband’s action seeking reimbursement from wife for her alleged failure to contribute to children’s college expenses. 
While the decree is conclusive and res judicata as to all facts and circumstances existing prior to its entry, the court has the continuing power, for causes accruing subsequent to its entry, to modify the provisions of the decree to meet the changed conditions of the parties.

Denial of the husband’s motion to reduce the child support order was reversed because the trial court committed impermissible “double counting” of the husband’s workers’ compensation settlement proceeds when it awarded half of the settlement to wife and children but did not adjust the husband’s child support obligation.
Where an order awarded a former wife rehabilitative maintenance and provided for review of the award some months later with no further pleadings to be filed by the parties, the review did not constitute a modification of the maintenance award; hence §510 of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act, 750 ILCS 5/510, did not apply.
Trial court did not abuse its discretion by finding a substantial change in circumstances by a substantial reduction in wife’s income and ordering a $250 per month increase in maintenance even though, in the original judgment, the court did provide for the diminution of payments when the husband’s salary as a reserve officer terminated; the court made no effort to prophesy or even speculate about the consequence of such reduction and certainly made no finding that the cessation of such payment would be reasonable for both parties.
A trial court did not abuse its discretion in increasing maintenance and child support where evidence showed that the fact that the parties’ daughter had asthma could have necessitated the wife’s decision to become self-employed, the wife had health problems, and the husband filed a written judicial admission of his ability to pay.

Reduction of income was the type of substantial change in circumstances contemplated by subsection (a) and thus it was error for the trial court to decline to modify the maintenance award.
Because the terms of the judgment did not incorporate the terms of a settlement agreement pursuant to 75 ILCS 5/502(f), the court had power to modify the maintenance award.
Modification of maintenance was appropriate where the husband presented evidence that he had chosen to cease working upon the advice of his physician and following heart pains significant enough to cause his hospitalization and his business required work seven days a week.
Although the ancillary order limited termination of maintenance to the conditions therefore in this section, it made no express reference to any conditions precluding modification as to the amount of maintenance and, therefore, did not preclude modification.
Modification of maintenance provisions of a 1975 settlement agreement was allowed using the standards of this section, even though enacted after 1975.
Where an option concerning disposition of a home required respondent to pay monthly rent to petitioner, the award was a form a maintenance which the court could not allow where petitioner was cohabiting with another.

Outstanding obligations incurred during the marriage previous to the entry of the decree placed financial demands upon defendant; however, this was out a change in circumstances during the relevant period because the change in circumstances must have occurred after the date of the decree.

Where petitioner claimed that the focus of the court should have been the change in his income and not his net worth because the parties did not contemplate that petitioner would have to liquidate assets to meet his maintenance and child support obligations’ under the separation agreement, then the court had discretion to consider evidence of his net worth.

The trial court did not err in refusing to make the child support award retroactive to September, the date when petitioner’s maintenance payments ceased, as there was no indication in the record that notice of hearing on petitioner’s petition for modification was served in September.

Where husband had additional income each year, in excess of his own living expenses and the maintenance payment he must make, trial court’s order of husband’s financial responsibility for wife’s attorney fees was not an abuse of discretion as her ability to pay was limited.

Where the related issues of maintenance to petitioner and the minor child and the payment of educational expenses were directly affected by the final property disposition, since these awards were substantially dependent upon the financial resources of the parties, including marital property, the maintenance and support awards would have to be revaluated by the trial court on remand so that it could properly consider any changes required in the disposition of such property.

While the valuation of a closely held corporation is not an exact science, this does not mean that such entities are incapable of being appropriately evaluated.
Although the value of a subsidiary corporation properly may have been discounted, the trial court lacked a proper foundation on which to base a determination that there was no value to its holding company; without consideration of the remaining values to the parent company, it was inappropriate to ascribe no value to it in determining an apportionment of marital property.