"Crucial to the
decision in this case is that the court's order arose in a
dissolution proceeding involving a request for permanent
financial relief. "Since marriage is of vital interest to
society and the state, it has frequently been said that in
every divorce suit "the state is a third party whose
interests
take precedence over the private interests of the spouses."
Posner v. Posner, 233 So.2d 381, 383 (Fla. 1970)." --DANIEL
v. DANIEL, 922 So.2d 1041 (Fla.App. 4 Dist. 2006) citing
Posner v. Posner
The Alliance For Freedom From Alimony, Inc. is
the leading group in the country working to reform the alimony
laws in order to abolish "lifetime Alimony" that has
forced spouses into a life of involuntary servitude and peonage
that has ruined the
lives of hundreds of thousand of spouses who are obligated to
pay that alimony.
We are fighting in the courts and and in the legislature
attempting to make changes to the alimony laws.
WHAT WE
BELIEVE REGARDING ALIMONY REFORM
To achieve a
constitutionally acceptable reform of alimony laws, The Alliance
For
Freedom From Alimony believes that the process of dissolution is
placing undue
burdens on Floridians who simply wish to change their
fundamental constitutional right of association and exercise
their fundamental constitutional right of privacy by altering
their marital status when they dissolve their marriage.
Accordingly:
(1). Floridians must be able to end their marriage with a
well defined goal of minimal intrusion by the state and that the
intrusion has a well defined and reasonable time limit.
In other words, the alimony portion of the dissolution process
will have a closure point where no further intrusion by the
state will be permitted. By limiting alimony awards to 3 years,
the practice by judges of retaining jurisdiction for life will
be eliminated. A judge could no longer award one dollar of
permanent alimony just to keep a Floridian tied to the court
system indefinitely in a state of perpetual bondage.
(2). Alimony statutes must be reformed to be duration
limited so that they are in accordance with other statute
mandated entitlements such as child support, welfare, and
unemployment compensation.
It does not make sense that the state will allow you discontinue
support for a teenage child who most likely has limited job
skills but not an adult ex-spouse. The state only allows adult
Floridians to receive unemployment compensation for 59 weeks. An
ex-spouse, who in many cases has received considerable equitable
distribution, is not responsible under FS 61.08 for themselves
financially for the rest of their lives; even when they took
steps during their marriage to have job skills because of
statute requirements such as "lifestyle during the marriage",
"emotional state", and "marital contribution".
(3). All references to marital lifestyle and marital
contribution must be removed from alimony statutes to ensure
both parties receive equal protection under the law.
While married, Floridians have the freedom to conduct their
marriage as they see fit and it is unconstitutional for the
state to intrude. A spouse can choose to stay home or work. They
can choose to save for their future or not save. The state
cannot and does not dictate marital conduct. In fact, Florida
statute 708.8 guarantees by law that married women are
financially independent from their husbands.
FL. Const Art X Sec 5
states:
"SECTION 5. Coverture
and property.--There shall be no distinction between married
women and married men in the holding, control, disposition,
or encumbering of their property, both real and personal;
except that dower or curtesy may be established and
regulated by law."
So, the state should not
be allowed to use marital conduct as a basis for alimony awards.
A married Floridian has abundant opportunity to look out for
their own future welfare while married and would probably do so
if they knew the state was not going to reward them during
dissolution for their marital conduct. If they do not, that is
their responsibility not their ex-spouses'. Nor can one spouse
force the other to do it. There is an assumption made by the
state that homemakers sacrifice their employment opportunities
for their spouse and families while the breadwinner spouse is
"privileged" to have a career.
Why is being the family breadwinner less of a sacrifice than
that of a homemaker? Does the state believe that working all day
in a job then coming home to share household duties with a
spouse is not sacrificial?
Does the state believe that years and years of paying bills and
giving the fruit of your labor for your families' welfare is not
sacrificial? Who gave the state the moral authority to determine
this and why is the constitutional right of privacy less after
marriage than before?
(4). 50/50 distribution of all marital assets and
liabilities must be mandatory and apart from any transitional
alimony award.
No one should be forced to pay court ordered alimony from their
equitable distribution if they lack other ability to pay. Nor
should distributed assets be used to calculate an alimony award.
This means no forced sale of titled property or payment of
alimony from liquid assets received as part of equitable
distribution.
(5). Alimony must not be calculated or used to supplement
a child support order.
Currently, state courts have the ability to manipulate alimony
amounts to enhance child support because child support is
statute limited and alimony is not. Also, Florida courts have
been labeling "alimony" as "child support" on state disbursement
unit deduction orders. We believe they are defrauding the
federal government out of Title IX funds for collecting unpaid
alimony misrepresented as and renamed "child support".
(6). Unbridled judicial discretion must be removed from
alimony statutes.
Criminal courts do not have unrestrained judicial discretion,
why do civil courts? Why does the state protect the rights of
convicted criminals from judicial abuse but not citizens who are
only trying to dissolve their marriage and have committed no
crime?
(7). The judiciary is a constitutional mandate to protect
citizens from the legislative and executive branches of
government. Therefore, the adversarial aspect of alimony must be
removed to eliminate the profit motive.
Permanent alimony and fighting over permanent alimony has turned
the judiciary into a profit driven corporation. Alimony victims
are forced to be tied to the corporation like it's a "company
store" continually coming back to seek their freedom or convince
judges that they deserve a modification because they want or
need to change their lifestyle. This results in the judiciary being a front for an industry
reaping billions of dollars in profit from people who have had
their constitutional rights suspended. This also gives the
divorce industry the ability to funnel dollars back into the
political process to perpetuate the "company store". In other
words, permanent alimony breeds political and governmental
corruption.
(8). Alimony must fall under the existing laws pertaining
to monetary debt.
Alimony is an entitlement created by the state and treated as a
duty of the husband to the wife and to "society." Because the
Florida courts call alimony a "duty" and not a debt, they can
incarcerate Floridians for failure to fulfill a court ordered
"duty. " The Florida Courts thereby avoid the Florida
Constitution ban on imprisonment for debt. (Art. I, Sec. 11 Fla.
Const.) There is no limit or restraint on this incarceration.
They choose to call alimony a "duty" to avoid existing debt laws
such as debtors prisons but, regardless of what they call it, it
accumulates like a debt and it collects interest like a debt.
In other words, the state creates a debt based on a fabricated
"duty". Then, they bind it as a contract involuntarily on to the
payer who can be jailed without limit for not paying it. Alimony
is not a voluntary obligation. The payer has received nothing
tangible in exchange for this perpetual debt obligation. The
state will say that the debtor has received homemaker services
or some other such contribution from the alimony recipient but
they will never talk about the tangible items the alimony
recipient previously received such as a provided home, food,
health care, clothes, cars, etc, etc. Should not the recipient
be indebted to the payer as well?
(9). Citizens seeking to dissolve their marriage are not
victims of each other.
The public policy of Florida is that Floridians in a marriage
may dissolve the marriage without fault by merely declaring the
marriage is irretrievably broken.
It is not appropriate for the state to say that someone
victimized someone else in their marriage and that makes them
deserving of alimony for life. It may be true that spouses
physically, verbally, or mentally abuse each other during
marriage. Or, that they commit infidelity. It must not be a
function of the state to define a victim for the purpose of
awarding permanent alimony.
There are already laws against domestic abuse and violence.
Outside of alimony statutes, there are no laws against adultery,
bickering, or falling out of love. Marriages are private
domains. So, if someone says "what about the woman whose husband
ran off with his younger secretary"? An appropriate reply may be
"what about the woman who ran off with her younger exercise
trainer"? What is the point?
The point is that Florida courts convert moral behavior, i.e.
infidelity into an economic factor in order that the legal
system has another issue to further distribute the Floridians
financial resources to the Family Law Bar.
(10). Alimony Is never voluntary.
Just because a Floridian signs a post dissolution settlement
agreement containing permanent alimony does not make it
voluntary. The 2nd DCA declared that "alimony is an entitlement
granted by statute" and that as such "it cannot be waived".
Even if a settlement agreement did not contain alimony, the
court is not obliged to approve it. Also, no Floridian can "opt
out" of paying alimony in their settlement agreement if the
receiving spouse wants it. The payer spouse has no real choice
in the matter. Some have been told during mediation that if they
don't agree to permanent alimony in their MSA, they will be
bankrupted by attorneys' fees trying to fight it and the court
will end up awarding it anyway.
In recent months, many people have joined our
ranks in the efforts to change the laws. If you are seeking relief from the burdens of
alimony payments, it will be to your advantage to join in with
our efforts to fight for relief from "lifetime alimony." See
what others of our group have done by viewing the cases filed.Some of the same arguments used by them can be incorporated
into your case documents should you decide to challenge the
constitutionality of your state's alimony statutes. By doing
this, you will let the courts know they are stepping on your
rights and this will allow you to fight back.
Alimony: A lottery
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