The DC Court of Appeals in Saxon v. Zirkle, imputed income during the divorce proceedings for voluntary unemployment. Specifically, the trial court had granted parties absolute divorce while denying Ms. Saxon’s request for alimony and instead imputed income on her for unemployment, awarded the parties joint legal custody of their child, as well as modified Mr. Zirkle’s child-support obligations based on the imputed income. On appeal, Saxon challenged to the trial court’s decision to impute $24,000 in income to her in determining alimony and child support calculations. The issue of imputation of income arose during the alimony proceedings. Based on
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Monthly Archives December 2020
PROPERTY DISTRIBUTION IN LIEU OF ALIMONY HELD TO BE VALID
In Sudderth v. Sudderth, the DC Court of Appeals addressed whether it was appropriate to award property in lieu of alimony. On appeal, Mrs. Sudderth’s claimed that the trial court had erred in distributing marital property in lieu of alimony without first calculating the amount and duration of alimony to be distributed. In short, the Court of Appeals held that there are no restraints on the trial court’s ability to award marital property in lieu of alimony, and also it is not an abuse of discretion when a trial court denies a request for alimony and yet awards marital property. Thus,
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