Can a 17 Year Marriage Result in Nearly 70 Years of Alimony? Discussion With RIO ROCKET

Sydney Mitchell:

Hi. My name is Sydney Mitchell.

Matthew Brickman:

Hi, I’m Matthew Brickman, Florida Supreme court mediator. Welcome to the Mediate This! Podcast where we discuss everything mediation and conflict resolution.

Matthew Brickman (00:01):
Hi, I’m Matthew Brickman, Florida Supreme court mediator. Welcome to the Mediate This! Podcast where we discuss everything mediation and conflict resolution. So today I am joined by Rio Rocket. I’m gonna let Rio introduce himself, and we’re just going to be talking, um, a lot about alimony. Rio’s got lots and lots of questions about alimony, and we may digress to some other, various topics throughout this episode. May even cut it into two or three episodes. We’ve just got so much content to, to hit. So, Rio, why don’t you introduce yourself to the listeners, sort of how you’re involved with the podcast, but yet so many questions.

RIO ROCKET (00:42):
Hello, audience. My name is Rio Rocket. I am the manager of this podcast and co-creator along with Matthew Brickman. Matthew and I have known each other for about 15 years now, and we came up with this idea a few years back, and I’m glad we did. I’m an actor, musician, spokesperson of Lowe’s. I’ve been following the podcast since its inception, obviously. And one topic that always makes my head spin is Florida alimony reform. I lived in Florida for approximately two years, and you know, Florida’s a wonderful place, especially South Florida where I live, but their alimony reform bill is something that I just can’t wrap my head around as to why it has not been passed yet. And today I’m really looking forward to discussing that.

Matthew Brickman (01:35):
So, Rio, I guess just ask away and I’ll try to answer as much as possible. Oh, well actually, you know what, for the listeners, you’re, you lived in Florida for two years, but currently you’re in New York.

RIO ROCKET (01:50):
Yes, I’m born and raised in New York City, and I moved down to Florida and found out I knew a lot of people there that I didn’t even realize lived there. But I moved down to Florida in 2007 and stayed there till about 2009. That’s where I met Matthew Brickman. And, you know, I’ve known him ever since, and now I’m back in New York City and you never know where I’ll be next.

Matthew Brickman (02:14):
Yeah. So, for the podcast, you know,and I always talk as you well know. And, and just to remind the listeners, we’re gonna be talking primarily Florida law, uh, but it’s important to know the laws of your individual state. Uh, with regards to the topics that we’re gonna be talking about today, I know that Florida and New York are different, uh, but we’re gonna be focusing on Florida law, being that that is where I live, that is where I am a mediator. I deal with Florida law, uh, all the time. But it is important to know the laws of your state. And this is not legal advice. We’re talking about just the knowledge that I have concerning what I deal with every day in mediation, um, and all the various things that I keep running across as a mediator for 16 years. So yeah, Rio, ask away.

RIO ROCKET (03:03):
Okay, so one thing that comes to mind when we’re speaking about lifetime alimony is, for example, let’s say I married someone. We’re both 20 years old, we’re divorced by 30 years old, and we both lived hypothetically to 100. Does that mean in the state of Florida I may have to pay alimony for 70 years, which is seven times the length of the marriage?

Matthew Brickman (03:33):
So, one of the things that, um, that Florida finally did, and I think it was around 2016 or so, was Florida actually, uh, defined, you know, before it was sort of like an understood, not, you know, everyone uses that term. It’s not written in stone. They finally wrote in stone the different types of alis, um, and when they’re appropriate and what they cover. So, um, under your scenario, it wouldn’t be a lifetime. And I’m gonna use the word sentence because for a lot of people it’s what it feels like, is a, a sentence, it’s a lifetime sentence. Um, so in Florida there are different types. So starting out for a, they first clearly defined what is a short term midterm and long term marriage. So short term is under seven years. It could be a minute long, or it could be up to seven years.

Matthew Brickman (04:30):
Seven to 17 is considered midterm, and then you’ve got long term, which is 17 years on. A a lot of times people ask that question of, okay, well we were married for this long, so how much am I gonna owe? Or how long am I gonna owe? Well, the length of the marriage does not tell you whether or not you’re eligible for it. The length only tells you what type you might be eligible for, but first you have to get past need versus ability to pay. Now you’re, I think you’re right around my age, you’re, you’re 49. Yes. Yeah. And I’m 48, so I’ve never met, I mean, I, in 48 years of this plan, I’ve never met anybody that said, no, no, no, no, I don’t need any more money. I’m good. Right? Uh, if that was true, Elon wouldn’t be doing what Elon is doing.

Matthew Brickman (05:17):
Buffet wouldn’t be doing what don’t buffet’s doing, you know? Um, and so first you have to get past need and ability, need, not, not, not hard ability. That can be a little bit tricky and difficult because, you know, in America being a consumer society, um, we usually want to, uh, spend more than we earn. And so we live life on credit and upside down. And so when we’re dividing up assets and liabilities in a divorce, you know, are, you know, is there an ability to pay? Um, and there’s so many different ways to chop that up. I mean, hypothetically, if, if the husband and the wife, let’s just say hypothetically have accumulated a hundred thousand dollars in, in liabilities, now it’s in the husband’s name, it’s on his credit card. So let’s just say that they happen to all be in his name. The bank can’t supersede the court, and the court can’t supersede the bank.

Matthew Brickman (06:16):
So it’s not like we can say, okay, well wife, you’re responsible for 50% and if she defaults, the bank’s gonna come after her. No, they’re not. They’re gonna come after whoever signed the contract to get the debt. And that’s the husband. So while she’s 50% responsible, um, in the family court, he’s a hundred percent responsible to the bank. So then we would take all the other assets and we would do an equitable distribution chart, and we would try to equalize them unless there’s marital dissipation and waste, we try to equalize ’em. But let’s say for example, that the husband’s like, look, you know what? I’ll take all the debt, I’ll take it all. Well, actually, once we do equalization, if he’s taking all the debt, it doesn’t matter what she’s getting in an asset, she, she’s in green, he’s in red, right? Um, or black and red, right?

Matthew Brickman (07:07):
And so then she’s like, well, I want alimony. Okay, well if he’s taking on his 50,000 in debt plus your 50,000 in debt and you’re walking away solvent, depending on the rest of what they have, there may or may not be an ability to pay. Um, and that’s, and, and so first we have to do a need versus ability to pay analysis. How do we do that? Well, we do that because everybody has to fill out a financial affidavit, a financial affidavit. I call two different things. It’s either an exercise in reality because most people have no idea what they make or what they spend, or it’s just a budget form. The problem is most people don’t live on a budget. That’s why they live beyond their means. So once they start writing everything down, okay, this is my paycheck. Oh, that’s what I make after taxes, and wait a second, this is what we have Forden Rio.

Matthew Brickman (08:02):
I mean, I’ve even had people sit in mediation going, we spend what on a cable bill? It’s like, well, you wanted your pay per view and you wanted your movie channel and you wanted your Netflix. It’s like, have no clue what they’re spending, right? And so once we do this whole analysis, the end of the form, it says, it says, uh, surplus or deficiency <laugh> Rio. It’s been, it really has been years since I’ve seen surplus like deficient, even 300 deficient. It’s deficient. Like it’s just deficient. Um, and, uh, and so, you know, so they, we have to do that first, and then once we figure that out, well, in Florida, and this was part of alimony reform, I believe it was 2016 in the bill that the house passed and the Senate passed, but then the governor vetoed it. We actually had a calculator. Oh, that would’ve made life so much easier for practitioners because we have a calculator with child support.

Matthew Brickman (09:07):
I mean, even New York has a, has a calculator for child support, right? But to be able to say, okay, this is what we get for alimony. And, and what they did was in that 2016 bill, it was based on a threshold. So you would put the number, uh, or you, you would put the, the date of marriage, you would put the date of filing because that’s your quadrant for defining what is marital, what is non-marital. And it would then say, okay, it’s been 10 years, right? And then it had a threshold for duration, how long you have to pay and a threshold for amount. And it spat out a number. It was like, that was great. Now, basically what they did back in the day where they were copying, um, I don’t know if you, you, I don’t know, you may remember when I interviewed Matthew Barrack, um, yeah, he, you know, he spearheaded the, uh, alimony reform up in the northeast, and that’s what Florida’s been trying to copy for years.

Matthew Brickman (10:12):
The problem is these politicians keep putting things in there that are constitutionally improper. Like you just, you, you can’t do it. And that’s what keeps killing it. If they would actually follow the exact model, we’d have it, but they don’t, they like to come in and add this, tweak this, and they already set up, you know, as, as Matthew had explained in that previous interview, how to do it and how to do it, right? So we, so we don’t have a, a calculator, which would make it easy, but we do know generally what the courts are doing. An alimony cannot create a savings component. Alimony is improper to equalize their incomes. And alimony cannot leave, uh, the receiver with more money, uh, than the payer. But being that they clearly define short-term, midterm, long-term marriage, then they went through and they defined, well, okay, for shortterm marriage, here’s the appropriate types of alimony.

Matthew Brickman (11:12):
If you can get past need and ability in a midterm marriage, they created, um, bridge, uh, no, not bridge the gap. Um, duration and durational duration makes sense. Like you’re not getting paid longer than you were married, like. Right. And I think that’s what you were alluding to in your first question. Like, why would you be married for 10 years? I gotta pay you for 70. Yes, yes. Durational took care of that and said, no, you, you, you were not getting paid a dime longer than you were actually married. And they created durational when they were looking at terminating lifetime. Like, let’s just get this off the books. It it, it’s just not fair. It’s not right. It’s not fair. It’s just improper. And so they created duration. Now, generally in Florida, at least the courts for the most part are doing 50%. So if it’s a 10 year marriage, it’s five years.

Matthew Brickman (12:05):
Uh, but still they, there, there has to be an exact finding. Um, you gotta get past need and ability. And then they look at a whole bunch of factors. There’s a number of factors in the statute, um, like the age, uh, their health, their employability, their education. And it says in there, the marital assets and liabilities distributed to each. So it depends how was it distributed? Was it equal? Was it unequal? They look at the parenting plan that their, their parental responsibility to the kids child support. Um, and one of the factors is how long was the marriage? It’s not just, oh, we had a 10 year marriage. Okay, alimony, no, that’s one of the factors. You still have to get past need and ability. Um, and so that’s sort of like just a foundation for, you know, how do you actually look at it?

Matthew Brickman (12:57):
What do we as practitioners, what do I look at? Um, and then we’ve got some guidance from the courts for generally what they try to get the receiver around a percentage of the, of the combined net incomes. Um, but it’s not, you know, it, it’s not so clear cut that, oh, it’s longer than 17 years lifetime. Because in the statute it does talk about, well, you’ve gotta make specific findings. And then it’s, and it talks about, well, you’ve gotta look and see and, and everything Rio in our, in our statute is may not shall it’s, well, it could be potentially. Um, and I, I think that part of the reason, at least from what I’ve heard from like a lot of practitioners, not the general public, but judges, lawyers, is one of the reasons why it’s not passing with exact formulas, exactness, that would give the general public a sense of, I guess, I guess information.

Matthew Brickman (14:03):
Like you could make an informed decision if you have an exact calculation, right? But by not having a calculation, it leaves discretion up to the judges and the attorneys and they can argue it, and they can make cases and they can get paid, and the whole system goes round and round and round. Um, is that good for the general public? No, I don’t think so. Um, general public likes certainty, um, you know, people getting divorced go, okay, it’s equitable distribution. I th we’re cutting everything data, marriage data filing in, in, in half. Okay. We have to set up a parenting plan. Generally we know what the courts in Florida have been doing since 20, uh, 2011 there. And, and here’s the thing, you know, here’s another reason, and I know that you said said you’ve been following Florida law for, uh, the alimony reform. One of the reasons why alimony reform keeps failing is because they keep, just like Washington on a large scale, Tallahassee on a state scale keeps doing what politicians do and they throw things in the bill that don’t belong.

Matthew Brickman (15:10):
And then maybe for one of those reasons, you don’t get alimony reform. So they throw in timesharing, don’t throw in equal timesharing with children in an alimony reform bill. Make it a separate bill. Now maybe they, maybe they know something going, well, if we make it its own bill, it’ll never get passed. Well then don’t throw it in alimony reform, cuz that’s complicating things. And so I think it was Rick Scott, I think in 2016, I think, um, he vetoed Alimo reform because of the presumption or premise of 50 50 in the time. And the alimony bill for, for kids, it wasn’t the alimony, it was the kid part that he vetoed and that screwed up elementary. It’s like stop throwing things in there that don’t belong. Um, and so that’s, that’s another frustrating part of it. But generally the public knows, okay, well we are, you know, we’re gonna do equit distribution, we’re gonna set up time sharing, you know, we’re gonna run child support as a statutory number.

Matthew Brickman (16:09):
And then there’s all this ambiguity and vagueness, which allows the attorneys to go in and the judges to have discretion. And you know, and, and I will tell you, Rio, if, let’s go back to your scenario. So you got maybe like 10 years of alimony, right? We’ll do a rough calculation and do like, okay, if you can get past need and ability and whatnot, and we can say, okay, you could possibly be on the hook for X amount of dollars, right? Right. We always have the conversation of, okay, well what is it gonna cost to pay your attorney to potentially get you out of that? Well, it’s a whole lot cheaper than you just sucking, sucking it up and paying it. Right? And so you do a cost benefit analysis. It’s like, now I’ll go to court and take my chances. Now sometimes it’s like, okay, you pay and then you pay. But a lot of times it’s like, well, you might be able to get it reduced. And in court there has to be a specific finding. So like it’s, it’s evidentiary. You have to produce every single bank statement, every single credit card. Like you better back up every single number on a financial affidavit. And if you can’t now, I mean, it’s a specific finding rather than mediation. It’s a negotiation. Everything’s out for negotiation. Right.

RIO ROCKET (17:35):
So what’s the shortest length marriage in which you’ve seen lifetime alimony awarded?

Matthew Brickman (17:43):
Oh, I have not seen Lifetime in, any, anything under 17 ever. Okay. So it’s all, yeah, I mean,  and I believe in the statute, there has to be extenuating circumstances for a court. And again, specific findings for a court to say, okay, we’re gonna give Lifetime for a short term, even a moderate term marriage.

Matthew Brickman:
Occasionally Sydney and I will be releasing Q & A bonus episodes where we will answer questions and give you a personal shout out.

Sydney Mitchell:
If you have a comment or question regarding anything that we discuss, email us at info@ichatmediation.com that’s info@ichatmediation.com and stay tuned to hear your shout out and have your question answered here on the show.