Use of money and Cussing!! FAMILY LAW UPDATE

Zvida v. Zvida (January 9, 2013) 4^th DCA

            Trial court erred by not making requisite findings, including whether special circumstances were present to require life insurance to secure child support and alimony.  Further, the trial court did not hold an evidentiary hearing as to availability, cost, and ability to pay for life insurance.  It was also error to order that the wife be listed as the beneficiary of life insurance securing child support as it should have been the child.  The court also erred in attributing an account to the husband in the amount of $117,315.00 which was valued at only $3,284.00 at time of trial.  It is error to include in the equitable distribution scheme assets or sums that have been diminished or depleted during the dissolution proceedings unless there is evidence of the spending spouse’s intentional dissipation or destruction of the asset, and the trial court makes a specific finding that the dissipation resulted from intentional misconduct.    Intentional misconduct is demonstrated by evidence that the marital funds were used for one party’s own benefit and for a purpose unrelated to the marriage at a time when the marriage is undergoing an irreconcilable breakdown.  In this case there was no testimony whatsoever as to how, or on what, the funds were used.

Waddell v. DeLorenzo (December 28, 2012) 5^th DCA

            Neighbor’s cussing and yelling vague threats from a distance were not grounds for entry of a repeat violence injunction.  Court erred in ordering a two year “cooling off period … for the sake of peace in the neighborhood.”