The terms “grey divorce,” “silver splitter” or “diamond divorcees” are terms used to refer to a demographic trend of an increasing divorce rate for older couples in long-lasting marriages. These particular types of divorce cases have their own particular types of issues. Marriage of McLain (2017) 7 Cal.App.5th 262 highlights just such issues.

Garnishing wages is not as easy as some think. This is a good thing, because we want obstacles before this process is put in place. Once it is in place, it takes time to remove a garnishment order, which is why some obstacles are good. Here are the basics of the process.

I believe every person, even those in relationships and marriages, should work; part-time or full-time. My reasoning is two-fold and founded upon the high cost of living in today’s world.

Continuous cash gifts from the parents of a spouse to that spouse or from the parents of a co-parent to that co-parent are magical. The cash gifts keep coming month after month with regularity and then, enter a family law action, they suddenly disappear like a butterfly with no promise to return. Were the cash gifts swept off in a breeze? Were they here for a few months? Or, did a parent get a deposition subpoena, lawyer up and decide to stop making the cash gifts?

I use the term “ode” loosely here as this is obviously not a poem. But, a highlight of a legal reality. Welcome to imputation of income; the ability of a Court to determine that a party can earn a certain amount of money each month, thus, reducing and/or eliminating child and spousal support payments.

In In re Marriage of Andreen (1978) 76 Cal. App.3d 667, 673 the Court of Appeal gave one of my top favorite lines in a family law case: “It is much more realistic (and at least fair) to appraise the parties’ 1979 situation by measure of actual rather than prophesied 1979 facts.” The Court of Appeal was referencing the trial court’s decision to award $500 per month in spousal support to wife with an automatic reduction to $1 per month at the end of five years and automatic termination of spousal support at the end of ten years.

I remember my first day of Community Property class in law school like it was yesterday. My instructor rattled off a few impressive cases that were "guaranteed" to make the class more than just an entire semester dedicated to which spouse gets the house and which spouse gets the business. Enter In re Marriage of Rossi (2001) 90 Cal.App.4th 34. I think I was already asleep, or partially there, when I was rattled out of my stupor by my professor's description of the facts in the Rossi case: "because the wife failed to disclose that she won the lottery to the husband during their dissolution of marriage proceedings, rather than awarding the husband his one-half, the husband was awarded ALL of the lottery winnings!" The entire class was flabbergasted.