Settlements, Judicial Discretion, and Alimony

• Jurisdiction: Maryland

II. SETTLEMENTS, JUDICIAL DISCRETION, AND ALIMONY

Whenever possible, marital disputes should be resolved by mutual agreement. The reasons range from flexibility and elimination of unnecessary expense at the one extreme to the parties' rights of privacy and unstable emotions at the other. As in all contested matters, however, it is necessary to evaluate each case based on the likelihood of the result. This is particularly difficult in family law cases because of:

(1) the interrelationship among the various remedies;

(2) the emotional issues; and

(3) lack of uniformity.

PRACTICE POINTER

In any settlement of alimony, the practitioner must specify all those aspects of the agreement where the agreed upon alimony is not to be technical alimony. Pursuant to Fam. Law § 8-103, alimony is expressly modifiable unless the agreement recites otherwise. In Moore v. Jacobsen,⁹ the parties' agreement specified alimony for a period of seven years but did not specify it was to continue if the wife re-married. The alimony was held to terminate upon the wife's remarriage in the absence of language to the contrary. The same principle presumable applies to the death of the payor or payee, since alimony agreements are often written to the payable by the payor's or payee's heirs and assigns.

Alimony is probably the most difficult issue to predict with any degree of certainty because both the "whether" and the "how much" are so judge- or magistrate-dependent. It is important to bear in mind that an alimony determination may not be disturbed unless the trial judge's decision is clearly wrong or an abuse of her or his discretion. This standard of review has been in place for many years, and the enactment of Maryland's present alimony statute in 1980 reaffirmed the discretion granted to trial court judges in divorce proceedings.¹⁰ Moreover, since the amount of the alimony award is also left to the discretion of the trial judge, as a general rule such conclusions are rarely disturbed on appellate review:

An alimony award will not be disturbed upon appellate review unless the trial judge's discretion was arbitrarily used, or the judgment below was clearly wrong. Brodak v. Brodak, 294 Md. 10, 28-29, 447 A.2d 847 (1982). This standard implies that appellate courts will accord great deference to the findings and judgments of trial judges, sitting in their equitable capacity, when conducting divorce proceedings. See Rock v. Rock, 86 Md. App. 598, 611-12, 587 A.2d 1133 (1991) (providing an excellent synopsis of prior cases).¹¹

A trial court has broad discretion in making an award of alimony,¹² as was confirmed by the Appellate Court of Maryland in Scott v. Scott:¹³

This Court has affirmed grants of indefinite alimony and refusals to award indefinite alimony where a variety of disparities in income were projected. See Rock v. Rock, 86 Md. App. 598, 612, 587 A.2d 1133 (1991). "Our approval or denial of these awards clearly indicate[s] the importance we place upon the judgment and discretion of the fact finder in evaluating and weighing the evidence and determining all the facts and circumstances in making these very important decisions." Id.

In Blaine v. Blaine,¹⁴ the Supreme Court of Maryland, modifying term alimony, rejected "a mechanical application of the statute that would limit the discretion of the court to fashion an appropriate alimony award."

In Lacy v. Arvin¹⁵ the Appellate Court of Maryland stated:

There is no requirement that there be a formal written agreement in matters involving separation alimony, child support and custody. The existence of an agreement with respect to such matters may be verified from testimony, the conduct of the parties, and other evidence in the case.

Among cases in which the Appellate Court found no abuse of the trial judge's discretion were:

Tracey v. Tracey¹⁶ -an award of indefinite alimony;

Scott...