Atlanta Divorce Attorney Blog

On April 28, 2009, the Georgia Supreme Court reversed an Order of the Dekalb County Superior Court finding a wife in contempt of the equitable distribution portion of the parties’ divorce decree. Farris v. Farris (S09A0302). Following a November 13, 2007 bench trial, Judge Castellani made an oral ruling regarding equitable distribution of the parties’ assets, but did not formalize this ruling until over a month later. The divorce decree provided that the wife shall place the marital residence on the market and shall control all aspects of the listing and sale for six months. If the residence did not sell within six months, the husband would take over control of the listing and sale, and this process shall repeat every six months until the house sold. The parties were to equally split the proceeds from the sale and the house was not to be sold for less than $650,000.00.

After the oral ruling but before entry of the final decree of divorce, the husband offered to purchase the wife’s interest in the house for $325,000, but the wife rejected this offer. Shortly after the final decree was entered, the wife accepted an offer on the house from the parties’ daughter in the amount of $650,150, which the husband rejected. The wife then filed a motion to hold the husband in contempt for rejecting this offer and the husband filed a motion for contempt against the wife for rejecting his offer. The Judge found the wife in contempt.

The Georgia Supreme Court reversed, stating adamantly that the wife could not be held in contempt of the divorce decree because there was no divorce decree entered at the time of husband’s offer. “Before a person may be held in contempt for violating a court order, the order should inform him in definite terms as to the duties thereby imposed upon him, and the command must therefore be express rather than implied. [Cit.]" (Punctuation omitted.) Hall v. Nelson, 282 Ga. 441, 444 (3) (651 SE2d 72) (2007).” Simply put, an oral Order is not sufficient for contempt. A person is not bound by a divorce decree until it is in writing and entered by the court.

On June 1, 2009, the Georgia Supreme Court reaffirmed the great discretion of the trial courts in determining the amount and length of alimony. In Sprouse v. Sprouse (S09F0709), the parties entered into a common law marriage in Alabama in 1996, which was terminated by divorce in 2001. Subsequently, the parties resumed living together and married on March 5, 2005. Approximately two years later, the husband filed for divorce and, after a bench trial, the wife was awarded alimony for 13 years. The husband appealed, contending that the alimony award was excessive in amount and duration in light of the parties’ relatively short marriage. Specifically, the husband argued that the trial court abused its discretion in considering the entire length of time the parties had been together, rather than just the length of the marriage.

Unlike child support, there is no statutory formula for determining alimony. Rather, there are eight statutory factors that the Judge can consider in awarding the amount and length of alimony, if any. O.C.G.A. §19-6-5(a). http://www.atlantadivorceattorneyblog.com/2008/10/what_are_the_factors_in_determ.html#more Here, the Supreme Court found that the trial court had discretion to consider length of the parties’ entire relationship as a factor in determining alimony under O.C.G.A. §19-6-5(a)(8), a catch-all provision allowing the court to consider “such other relevant factors as the court deems equitable and proper.” Thus, the Georgia Supreme Court reaffirmed that “[i]n the absence of any mathematical formula, fact-finders are given a wide latitude in fixing the amount of alimony . . . and to this end they are to use their experience as enlightened persons in judging the amount necessary for support under the evidence as disclosed by the record and all the facts and circumstances of the case.” Arkwright v. Arkwright, 284 Ga. 545, 546 (2) (a) (668 SE2d 709) (2008).

In part five of our ten part series on how to effectively use mediation in your contested divorce case, we will continue to examine steps to take to make sure you and your Atlanta divorce lawyer are ready for mediation. This blog will also work if you and your spouse plan on using mediation to settle your case without an Atlanta Divorce lawyer. In this blog, we go into how to handle yourself at mediation and what usually goes on at mediation.

Mediations typically start with an opening statement by either side. Most of the time, you should have your Atlanta divorce lawyer make the statement to keep it factually accurate and non-inflammatory. It does not do any good to increase the tension at the beginning of mediation. Avoid an opening statement full of vile accusations, conduct issues, and inaccuracies. This has no effect other than to sabotage mediation; when the whole purpose of mediation is to avoid that type of conflict.

After the parties have given opening statements, the mediators tend to meet privately with the parties in what is called a caucus. In the caucus session, the more inflammatory facts can be made known to the mediator; and can be communicated to your spouse in a much more pleasant and less hostile manner by the mediator - rather than the opposing side.

Continue reading " How to Effectively Use Mediation to Settle with Your Contested Canton, Georgia Divorce – Part V " »

In part four of our ten part series on how to effectively use mediation in your contested divorce case, we will continue to examine steps to take to make sure you and your Atlanta divorce lawyer are ready for mediation. This blog will also work if you and your spouse plan on using mediation to settle your case without an Atlanta Divorce lawyer. In this blog, we go into a the importance of prioritizing issues that are important to you.

Being prepared involves setting priorities. It is important that you understand at the outset, which are the most important goals to obtain through settlement. If primary physical custody of your children means more to you than anything else, you both need to be clear that this means that you might need to make certain financial concessions in order to obtain custody. Setting clear priorities before negotiation helps both you focus on what is most important to you, and allows your Atlanta divorce attorney to prepare your strategy.

If there have been any settlement negotiations before the mediation, you should outline them in a concise manner. Often the best way is by using a chart so that on one piece of paper each person’s position on each separate issue can be tracked. This will often help in two areas. First, your Atlanta divorce lawyer may see a trend or strategy in your spouse’s negotiation. Second, it will enable the mediator, who has no prior knowledge of the case, to look at what has occurred, the positions taken by you and your spouse, where there are agreements, where there are differences, and more importantly how different those differences are. This tells the mediator exactly where attention needs to be placed and where the time, energy and fort of the mediation need to be spent. It is a quick snapshot of what has transpired. Even more important, it is a road map of where mediation needs to go and, hopefully, how to get there.