Section 21.8 Maintenance Issues

• Library: Family Law Deskbook and 2014 Supp

C. (§21.8) Maintenance Issues

Experts, usually vocational experts, have been used by parties to show why maintenance should or should not be awarded in dissolution matters. In Russo v. Russo, 760 S.W.2d 621 (Mo. App. E.D. 1988), the court upheld a lower court’s determination of future self-sufficiency of the wife to support a maintenance award of limited duration. Expert testimony indicated that the wife, based on her education and work history, could become adequately trained after taking a six-month course. But cf.Carter v. Carter, 901 S.W.2d 906 (Mo. App. E.D. 1995).

In Carter, both parties hired vocational experts to assess the wife’s employment opportunities. Both experts testified as to what they believed the wife could earn on the open labor market in the field of interior design. But the appellate court noted that, at the time of entry of the decree, the wife was earning nowhere near the figure either of the experts gave. The appeals court therefore found error in the trial court’s award of only three years limited maintenance. The trial court had reasoned that three years of maintenance would allow the wife to obtain her college degree, thereby boosting her income potential. The appellate court held that “there was insufficient evidence in the record for the court to find, even if Wife were able to complete her degree, her financial prospects would be appreciably better in three years than they were on the date the decree was entered.” The court of appeals then modified the decree so that the husband was ordered to pay the wife maintenance until he requested a modification and the trial court found that a change in circumstances deemed appropriate under § 452.370, now RSMo 2000, had occurred.

Counsel that chooses to use an expert regarding maintenance or any other topic needs to take care to follow any scheduling or other timing orders from the trial court. Failure to do so can result in the trial court refusing to allow the testimony of...