The equitable distribution law in Florida grants the court the authority to deviate from the equal distribution of marital property if one of the spouses intentionally dissipated or wasted marital property before the divorce. In the event that the court must address the dissipation of assets, it must make factual findings and use strong evidence to support the decision. In this article, the Tampa, FL, divorce lawyers at Westchase Law, P.A., will discuss a real case in which the court addressed the dissipation of assets by one spouse.
Background of the case
This case originated from a divorce proceeding where the couple disagreed on how to dispose of certain marital funds. During the marriage, the husband used certificates of deposit worth around $93,000. However, by the time of the hearing, the funds were no longer available for distribution.
The wife claimed that the husband’s actions constituted dissipation of marital funds. She asked the court to deduct the funds by effectively charging the husband with dissipating them. The court agreed with the wife’s claim that the funds constituted a waste of marital funds and adjusted the distribution of property accordingly to create an unequal distribution.
The husband opposed this and appealed the decision on the basis that it failed to make the necessary findings required by Florida law.
The appeal
On appeal, the Second District Court of Appeal reaffirmed that Florida law allows trial courts to consider the intentional waste of assets. However, the appeals court emphasized that the expenditure of marital funds is not automatically considered dissipation. To consider the missing asset as part of the marital estate and award the entire asset to one spouse, the trial court must make specific findings that the spouse who spent the assets did so with the intent to dissipate marital assets. Expenditures for marital purposes or general wastefulness is not sufficient to warrant deviating from the 50/50 standard in divorce.
In the aforementioned case, the Second District Court of Appeal ruled that the trial court failed to make the necessary findings to justify unequal distribution. Although the judgment indicated that the funds were no longer available, the judgment did not make the requisite findings that the husband intentionally dissipated the marital assets with the intent to deprive the wife of those assets.
Since the trial court failed to make the required findings of misconduct with substantial evidence, the appeals court reversed the award to the wife and remanded the case for further proceedings.
Key takeaways
Ultimately, a trial court must find that one spouse intentionally dissipated assets from the marital estate to warrant giving the other spouse a greater share of the couple’s assets. Since the court failed to do this, the case was overturned on appeal.
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Source:
caselaw.findlaw.com/fl-district-court-of-appeal/1615122.html