Court Opinion

ID: 9861886
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:53:23.396837+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:29:37.631879
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE McDADE, specially concurring: I concur with the decision of the majority that the trial court had jurisdiction to consider the matter of maintenance and with the reversal and remand. I write separately because I believe there is an alternative interpretation — fully consistent with the facts — that I would like to advance. We have assumed that what the court made reviewable was the entitlement to maintenance. When we look at the facts, that seems to me to be unlikely. Carmen suffers with lupus, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis, all progressively debilitating diseases with no known cures. In addition, she has limited education without a diploma or any form of degree and she possesses minimal work skills. Moreover, the court noted that after the divorce she might be able to increase her weekly work hours to the 15 that was the maximum allowed by her doctor. She was earning $6.79 per hour which would, by my calculation, yield at 15 hours per week for 52 weeks per year, a gross annual salary of $5,296.20 or $441.35 per month. Her monthly expenses, including medical bills, were $3,000. She could not maintain herself for even two full months on what she was able to earn in a year. Even with the $320 per week ($1,280 per month from her former husband), she was still bringing in only a little over half of her monthly expenses. This dissolution ended a marriage of 29 years. Armando earns $89,000 per year with no mandatory retirement age; Carmen earns approximately $5,300 per year with annual estimated expenses of $36,000. Because the circuit court could not reasonably have believed, on these facts, that she could have significantly improved her financial situation, I would suggest that she was awarded permanent maintenance, as her attorney had requested, and that what the court made reviewable was the amount of maintenance. We can, I think, reasonably infer that the court felt four years was enough time for Carmen to see if she could manage on that amount and for Armando to amass any arguments that she could survive on less. This interpretation also, in my opinion, makes more sense of the court’s use of the word “within” rather than “after.” For the foregoing reasons, I concur in the decision of the majority that the court retained jurisdiction and to reverse and remand the matter for further consideration.