How Long is a Marriage? It Depends why you are asking!

The Massachusetts Appeals Court has decided another case interpreting the Alimony Reform Act, that I will likely refer to as that "length of the marriage" case rather than trying to pronounce the actual name. In Valaskatgis v. Valaskatgis, the Appeals Court was faced with the question of whether the Alimony Reform Act's definition for "length of the marriage" also applied to property division questions.

Question: Does Length of the Marriage (for Alimony) =

Length of the Marriage (for Property Division)?

Answer: No.

Why does it matter?

The Alimony Reform Act defines length of the marriage as:

"the number of months from the date of legal marriage to the date of service of a complaint or petition for divorce or separate support duly filed in a court of the commonwealth or another court with jurisdiction to terminate the marriage; provided, however, that the court may increase the length of the marriage if there is evidence that the parties’ economic marital partnership began during their cohabitation period prior to the marriage." M.G.L. c. 208 § 48

The Property Division statute lists "length of the marriage" as one of the numerous factors that the court shall consider "in fixing the nature and value of the property, if any, to be so assigned" from one party to the other. See M.G.L. c. 208 § 34

If these are the same, then property acquired after the date of filing a divorce complaint would not be part of the property division discussion. That was the argument the husband was making in ~~Valaksagtis~~ ~~Valaskagis~~ ~~Vakaslagis~~ Valaskatgis, because he received $96,000 in overtime income after the divorce filing but before the date of the divorce.

The Appeals Court disagreed and even though the name of the case is not simple, the court's theory is pretty straightforward: "Nothing in the language of § 48 (or for that matter, in the language of the Alimony Reform Act more generally) indicates or suggests that its definitions are to be exported beyond §§ 49 through 55." Which essentially means that longstanding case law regarding property acquired after the Complaint for Divorce filing still stands, and the Judge has discretion to divide that property in consideration of all the § 34 factors.

Comments

What is the purpose of the Divorce Nisi waiting period?

In Massachusetts the statutory waiting period after a Judgment of Divorce and before the divorce becomes final (or absolute) is called the Nisi period. After a divorce case settles or goes to trial, a Judgment of Divorce Nisi will issue and it will become Absolute after a further ninety (90) days. This waiting period serves the purpose of allowing parties to change their mind before the divorce becomes final. If the Judgment of Divorce Nisi has issued but not become final yet, and you and your spouse decide you don't want to get divorced, then you can file a Motion to Dismiss and the Judgment will be undone. Although many of my clients who are getting divorced think the idea of getting back together with their ex sounds crazy, I have had cases where this happened. In addition to offering a grace period to change your mind, the Nisi period has three other legal effects: 1. The most obvious effect of the waiting period is that you cannot remarry during the Nisi period, be...

New Massachusetts Child Support Guidelines (2021): Big Changes, Little Changes, Typos & some Unexpected Results

UPDATE: The court has released a web calculating version of the 2021 MA Child Support Guidelines Worksheet . It resolves some of the typos referred to below, but the unexpected calculations still apply. Every four years, per federal mandate, the Massachusetts Probate & Family Court revisits the Child Support Guidelines through the work of a Task Force appointed by the Chief Justice. The 2021 Massachusetts Child Support Guidelines were recently posted. They take effect on October 4, 2021. If you are interested in a training on all of these changes to the new Child Support Guidelines: DMTA Presents the 2021 MA Child Support Guidelines Update – Attend this event to learn the key updates you need to know for your mediation clients. Presented by Justin Kelsey of Divorce Mediation Training Associates and Skylark Law & Mediation, PC . For a full comparison of all the tracked changes between the 2018 and 2021 Massachusetts Ch...

Updating your Divorce Agreement Template - More Lessons from Cavanagh v. Cavanagh

We recently posted a lengthy review of the the Massachusetts SJC decision in Cavanagh v. Cavanagh (2002) which included some recommendations for drafting divorce agreements, also typically called Separation Agreements. The Cavanagh case is best known for it's clarification of how the courts should evaluate support calculations when a case may have both alimony and child support. However, the case also contained numerous rulings that should make practitioners review their Separation Agreement templates and change some of the ways in which they may have previously drafted certain sections. In this post we'll share actual language from the Gray Jay Endeavors, LLC form Separation Agreement template which addresses each of the issues raised by the Cavanagh decision. If you are a professional interested in purchasing the full Separation Agreement template, check out Gray Jay's forms subscription which includes editable Massachusetts court forms and financial st...

Search This Blog