Cases: Family Law

  However, Open Question Remains—Need to File Motion for Further Response/Evidentiary Preclusion As Predicate—Not Decided.      Marriage of Crawford, Case No. A138156 (1st Dist., Div. 3 Mar. 28, 2014) (unpublished) affirmed a trial court’s denial of awarding sanctions against an ex-husband under Family Code section 2107, which allows a court to award reasonable attorney’s fees […]

  However, Error Was Not Prejudicial In Nature.      In Marriage of Bareket & Marcus, Case No. A136067 (1st Dist., Div. 4 Mar. 12, 2014) (unpublished), ex-wife was miffed when a lower court denied her request for Family Code section 2030 needs-based fees on the eve of a trial. On appeal, the reviewing court agreed

  Divorce Case Here Was a “Belizian” To-Do.      Marriage of Wade, Case No. B230601 (2d Dist., Div. 7 Feb. 18, 2014) (unpublished) was a Belizian-flavored dissolution proceeding: ex-wife and her son, from Belize, were granted asylum from the U.S.; she met and married her ex-husband, also from Belize, in the U.S.; and husband helped

  By Time of Ruling, Both Parties Had Somewhat Equal Assets.      Ex-wife obviously was upset in Laughman v. Laughman, Case No. B245837 (2d Dist., Div. 8 Feb. 10, 2014) (unpublished) because the lower court only ordered ex-husband to pay needs-based fees of $25,000 even though she requested more than $200,000 in fees.      The

  Case Illustrates the High Price of Divorce.      Not so much for its discussion of some needs-based fee orders, Marriage of Schulman, Case No. D063341 (4th Dist., Div. 1 Jan. 21, 2014) (unpublished) was revealing in the high price of divorce: ex-husband spent $76,000 in fees (resorting to defending himself with some family law

  Evidence That Party With Greater Resources Incurred Greater Fees Should Be Taken Into Account, But Did Not Matter Here.      Marriage of Maxwell, Case No. F065915 (5th Dist. Jan. 30, 2014) (unpublished) involves a divorce in which wife was heiress with large income from a trust (disposable income of $43,000 per month), and husband

  This One Was a True Marital Imbroglio—Doesn’t Look Like Anyone “Won.”      Marriage of Aitchison, Case No. A134450 (1st Dist., Div. 2 Jan. 24, 2014) (unpublished), is a monument to the fees and costs that can be spent in a volatile dissolution matter. Here is the beginning of this opinion: “‘[T]he parties appear in

  Substance Over Form Prevailed in this One.      Marriage of Sharples, Case No. E056941 (4th Dist., Div. 2 Jan. 22, 2014) (published) is a case where a lower court denied a wife’s needs-based request for provisional attorney’s fees and costs (with husband having a definably bigger cash flow/asset advantage) because she did not file

  Goes to Show You … Family Law Judges Have to Create More of a Record Than Civil Judges Do in Certain Fee Proceedings.      The present state of the law is that trial judges in most civil fee proceedings do not, we stress do not, have to provide a statement of decision in support