Court Opinion

ID: 9940470
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-14 16:05:13.220554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:44:53.198662
License: Public Domain

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
                              FOURTH DISTRICT

                         JUAN GAMEZ GARCIA,
                              Appellant,

                                     v.

                        MARIA D. RUIZ MORENO,
                               Appellee.

                             No. 4D2023-0938

                            [February 14, 2024]

   Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit,
Indian River County; Cynthia L. Cox, Judge; L.T. Case No.
312022DR000639.

   Charles E. Jarrell of Charles E. Jarrell, P.A., Vero Beach, for appellant.

   No answer brief filed for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

   This case involves the divorce of parties with limited means, whose net
assets totaled approximately $73,000. The parties’ most significant asset
was a mobile home and lot valued at $66,000.

   The final judgment awarded the former wife $275 per month in
permanent alimony; the judgment also awarded the former wife the
entirety of the mobile home as lump sum alimony, finding that the former
husband “agree[d]” to such a disposition.

   On appeal, the former husband does not attack the award of permanent
alimony. Rather, he takes issue with the award of the mobile home,
contending that the record does not support the court’s finding that he
“agree[d]” to such a disposition of the property.

   At trial, the former husband represented himself. Examination of the
Zoom trial transcript reveals that he did not unconditionally agree that his
wife should receive title to the mobile home and lot—he made that offer on
the condition that he had no other financial obligation to the former wife.
At one point at the trial, when faced with the prospect of certain financial
obligations, the former husband said, “in that case I will ask for the mobile
home to be sold and then split everything in half.”

   We reverse the award of the mobile home and lot to the former wife. On
remand, the trial court should consider how the disposition of that
property should be achieved in the absence of any agreement by the former
husband. To do justice between the parties, the trial court may also
reconsider or adjust the award of alimony.

   Reversed and remanded.

KLINGENSMITH, C.J., GROSS and CONNER, JJ., concur.

                            *         *        *

   Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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