Case Name: Colleen W. HOFFMAN, Appellant, v. George Pearson HOFFMAN, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1989-11-09
Citations: 552 So. 2d 958
Docket Number: No. 88-2224
Parties: Colleen W. HOFFMAN, Appellant, v. George Pearson HOFFMAN, Appellee.
Judges: SHIVERS, C.J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 552
Pages: 958–961

Head Matter:
Colleen W. HOFFMAN, Appellant, v. George Pearson HOFFMAN, Appellee.
No. 88-2224.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
Nov. 9, 1989.
Rehearing Denied Dec. 18, 1989.
Bill A. Corbin, Blountstown, for appellant.
Paul G. Komarek, of Daniel, Komarek & Martinec, Panama City, for appellee.

Opinion:
WILLIS, BEN C. (Ret.), Associate Judge.
This is an appeal from a final judgment of dissolution in which the wife seeks reversal of the finding of the trial judge that the Florida court had jurisdiction of the case. Also, on the merits, the award of property and alimony to the wife is challenged as insufficient and not in accord with equitable considerations.
The first issue is whether or not there is substantial competent evidence amounting to clear and positive proof of the statutory residence of six months of the petitioning husband next before the filing of the action. Section 61.021, Florida Statutes. Though there was much conflicting evidence, it appears that there was. The plaintiff husband testified he formed the intent to make Florida his residence on November 1, 1986. It was undisputed that both parties came to Bay County during that November and opened a checking account in a Bay County Bank. They had bought a beach house in late June 1986 and had moved furniture there in September. After returning to North Carolina following opening of the bank account they returned to Bay County in late December 1986 when both parties applied for and received Florida driving licenses and registered as voters in Bay County. In February 1987 they applied for and received homestead exemption on the beach house. A 1986 joint income tax return of the parties was filed, stating a Panama City Beach address, which was a rented mailbox. In March 1987 Mr. Hoffman responded to a summons for jury service in Bay County but was not selected on a trial panel.
During this period the husband was physically in Bay County from time to time, and he states he was at the Florida house at least twice a month from the time the furniture was moved in 1986. The longest period he was in Florida in the six months before filing the dissolution action on June 26, 1987 was in June 1987. He states he was there thirty days or so in June extending into July.
This evidence and the facts elicited from it are legally sufficient to sustain the trial court's finding of jurisdictional residence prescribed by statute. There is much evidence of the husband's activity in North Carolina during that time, but his actual presence and other acts clearly indicative of Florida residence are adequately supportive of the trial court's action.
The adjudications on the merits in awarding property and alimony to the wife are within the bounds of sound judicial discretion. This was a marriage of just over a year's duration and there was a significant disparity in the spouses' ages— he being 65 and she 53. Appellate judges cannot substitute their judgment for that of the trial judge who had the parties before him and viewed and considered the evidence firsthand. This writer would probably have been disposed to have been more generous in awarding rehabilitative alimony to the wife. However, the trial court's logic is sound and there is neither failure to conform to the law nor an exercise of abuse of discretion in the judgment rendered.
The judgment is AFFIRMED.
SHIVERS, C.J., concurs.
ERVIN, J., dissents with opinion.