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STATEMENT
OF SUPPORT
FOR POST-MARITAL INCOME GUIDELINES
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Support Statement
Members of the Post-Marital
Income Guidelines Coalition are committed to
working toward passage of a law revising New
York State’s rules for awarding what is
now called maintenance. New York needs a new
approach consistent with Chief Judge Judith
Kaye’s call for
a “cultural revolution” to reduce
drastically the time and costs, both financial
and emotional, of matrimonial cases.
Awards under
New York’s
existing divorce laws are inconsistent, unpredictable,
and, in far too many cases, unfair. We urge
the legislature to adopt standardized guidelines
for post-marital income, a new name that captures
the nature of, and basis for, periodic payments
by one former spouse to another after a divorce.
Currently,
maintenance is the
“wild card” in negotiations, impeding
settlement and encouraging litigation. Standards
for making awards are vague and susceptible
to significantly different interpretations by
judges operating without firm statutory guidance.
Unlike equitable distribution and child support,
which lawyers can predict with some degree of
accuracy, lawyers do not know how to advise
their clients about whether maintenance will
be awarded and, if so, how much and for how
long. The result is litigation over maintenance
at considerable costs.
Most prejudiced by the
existing regime are moderate and low income
spouses
who cannot afford lengthy, expensive litigation.
They are forced to give up
legitimate claims simply because they lack resources
to pursue their cases in
courts. Yet maintenance is often necessary for
households to avoid the financial instability
that disrupts lives and subjects families to
hardship and stress.
We support a new approach
to post-marital income that would:
1) Make simpler
and more rational the process of awarding post-marital
payments by applying rules that:
- produce a
presumptive dollar amount for an award based
on differences in the incomes of divorcing
spouses;
- produce a presumptive duration for an
award based on the length of the marriage;
- and allow judges to deviate from both the
presumptive dollar amount and the presumptive
duration of the award based on a prescribed
list of factors.
2) Assure sufficient awards
to former spouses to compensate for differences
in earning capacity flowing from divisions
of labor during marriage and a reasonable
reliance by spouses on the existence of an
ongoing marital partnership.
The Coalition members
ask legislators to look for guidance in formulating
legislation to the Report of the American Academy
of Matrimonial Lawyers on Considerations when
Determining Alimony, Spousal Support or Maintenance
(Approved by Board of Governors on March 9,
2007). The Child Support Standards Act, which
has been in use by judges and lawyers for nearly
two decades, also offers models for the statutory
structure and language.
Establishing a sounder
basis of claims for what is now called maintenance
through standardized guidelines is a critical
reform to our matrimonial laws. We urge New
York policy makers to make the enactment of
these guidelines an immediate priority.
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Support Statement
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