Duff-Kareores v. Kareores (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-082-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us SJC-11975 ELLEN DUFF-KAREORES vs. CHRISTOPHER KAREORES. Essex. February 10, 2016. – June 15, 2016. Present: Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, Lenk, & Hines, JJ. Divorce and Separation, Alimony, Division of property. Complaint for divorce filed in the Essex Division of the Probate and Family Court Department on June 19, 2013. The case was heard by Peter C. DiGangi, J. The Supreme Judicial Court on its own initiative transferred the case from the Appeals Court. James P. Hall (Jaclyn Martin with him) for Christopher Kareores. John Foskett for Ellen Duff-Kareores. DUFFLY, J. Ellen Duff-Kareores and Christopher Kareores were first married to each other in May, 1995; two children were born of the marriage before the parties divorced in 2004. The parties’ divorce agreement, which was incorporated in the divorce judgment, obligated Christopher to, among other things, pay Ellen alimony in the amount of $ 7,600 per month. Beginning in 2007, Christopher resumed living with Ellen and the children in what had been the marital residence. In December, 2012, the parties remarried. In June, 2013, Ellen filed a complaint for divorce on the ground of an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage and served the complaint on Christopher the following month. Following trial on that complaint, a judge of the Probate and Family Court concluded that, under the Alimony Reform Act of 2011, St. 2011, c. 124 (alimony reform act or act), the length of the parties’ marriage for purposes of calculating the durational limits of a general term alimony award to Ellen was eighteen years, the period from the date of the parties’ first marriage through the date that Christopher was served with the complaint in the second divorce. Christopher appealed, and we transferred the case to this court on our own motion. This case requires us to decide whether the judge correctly construed G. L. c. 208, § 48, which provides that “the court may increase the length of the marriage if there is evidence that the parties’ economic marital partnership began during their cohabitation period prior to the marriage.” We conclude that the judge’s findings do not support a determination that the parties had an economic marital partnership, within the meaning of G. L. c. 208, § 48, during the period following the service on the husband of the […]