Court Opinion

ID: 9645626
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:30:21.956372+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:29.975063
License: Public Domain

Parskey, J.
(dissenting). This case cries out for reversal because the trial court’s decision is clearly erroneous. Practice Book § 3060D.
General Statutes § 46b-86 provides for a modification of periodic alimony “upon a showing that the party receiving the periodic alimony is living with another person under circumstances which the court *395finds should result in the modification, suspension, reduction or termination of alimony because the living arrangements cause such a change of circumstances as to alter the financial needs of that party.” We said in Kaplan v. Kaplan, 185 Conn. 42, 45, 440 A.2d 252 (1981) (Kaplan I) that the party moving for modification must “show that the party receiving alimony is ‘living with another person’ and that this living arrangement has caused a ‘change of circumstances’ which ‘alter[s] the financial needs’ of the party receiving alimony.” Upon reflection and in order to effectuate the legislative purpose implicit in this statute we might have been well advised to have construed the statute so as to shift the burden of showing no change of financial circumstances to the alimony recipient upon a showing by the payor of the requisite living arrangement. 17 Journal of Family Law 249, 256 (1978-79). But accepting the earlier decision as stating the law of the case; Dacey v. Connecticut Bar Assn., 184 Conn. 21, 441 A.2d 49 (1981); the case still calls for reversal.
We have had just one occasion to construe the phrase “living with” another person. In McPadden v. Morris, 126 Conn. 654, 13 A.2d 679 (1940), we said (p. 659) “[t]he phrase ‘living with him’ and similar wording has uniformly been interpreted as meaning actually residing with, making a home with.” We also cited with approval Nelson’s Case, 217 Mass. 467, 105 N.E. 357 (1914), wherein the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said (p. 469): “ ‘With whom she lives’ . . . means living together as husband and wife in the ordinary acceptation and significance of these words in common understanding. They mean maintaining a home and living together in the same household, or *396actually cohabiting under conditions which would be regarded as constituting a family relation. There may be temporary absences and incidental interruptions arising out of changes in the house or town of residence, or out of travel for business or pleasure____The matrimonial abode may be a roof of their own, a hired tenement, a boarding house, a rented room or even a room in the house of a relative or friend, however humble or temporary it may be.” “But there must be a home and a life in it.”
By any objective standard, the defendant has been “living with another person” within the meaning of § 46b-86 (b). Although she and Doost possess separate addresses in a two-family house, it is apparent from the defendant’s own testimony that she and Doost occupy the second floor while her children sleep downstairs. While the trial court found that the couple maintained separate households, the factual basis for this finding is obscure. To be sure there was testimony from the defendant and Doost to this effect but such testimony is conclusory. A conclusion cannot stand if it is not supported by subordinate facts; Sanchione v. Sanchione, 173 Conn. 397, 402, 378 A.2d 522 (1977); or if it is inconsistent with those facts. Morris v. Costa, 174 Conn. 592, 597, 392 A.2d 468 (1978). Unsupported conclusions are nothing more than factual flotsam. The undisputed facts here would support a conclusion that the defendant maintained a separate household downstairs for her children while she and Doost were living together upstairs. The facts that the defendant regularly slept upstairs with Doost, as often as six nights out of seven, that they regularly ate meals together, went on trips together and shared expenses could not support a finding that they were living apart in *397separate households, however they chose to characterize their arrangement. If sharing bed and board is not the connubial paradigm envisaged by the statute then the legislative enactment, which can be so easily circumvented, has been reduced to a futile gesture.
While I agree with so much of the concurring opinion of Justice Shea as relates to the “living together” phase of the ease, I do not construe the decree as he does. That portion of the decree which permits the defendant to receive net earnings from employment of $7500 without any modification of alimony has no relationship to the living together situation. A simple example will suffice. If the defendant remarried could she continue to receive alimony so long as her net earnings from employment did not exceed $7500? Of course not. The living arrangement contemplated by ^ 46b-86 (b) is tantamount to remarriage, the only difference being that, whereas in the case of a remarriage financial impact is immaterial, in the living arrangement situation, a financial impact must be shown.
That the defendant’s nonmarital union with Doost has altered her financial needs is abundantly clear from her own testimony. On her financial affidavit the only income shown by the defendant is derived from the plaintiff’s alimony and child support payments. The defendant admitted that since her divorce from the plaintiff she has traveled with Doost to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Cape Cod, Philadelphia and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. She also testified that she and Doost shared the expenses for these trips and that for her share she used the alimony and child support payments she received from the plaintiff. Since these pay*398ments were ordered to meet her financial needs and since expensive vacations were not listed on her financial affidavit as among those needs, unless the defendant had access to a financial genie, the conclusion that an alteration in her financial needs has resulted from her “togetherness” is inescapable. However loath we may be, ordinarily, to work the factual vineyard; Koizim v. Koizim, 181 Conn. 492, 498, 435 A.2d 1030 (1980); if ever a case called for appellate pruning this is it. I would reverse and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.