Flor v. Flor (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-131-17)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 16-P-752 Appeals Court JEFFREY W. FLOR vs. THERESA M. FLOR. No. 16-P-752. Berkshire. December 8, 2016. – October 4, 2017. Present: Green, Agnes, & Desmond, JJ. Divorce and Separation, Modification of judgment, Alimony. Complaint for divorce filed in the Berkshire Division of the Probate and Family Court Department on August 24, 2007. A complaint for modification, filed October 7, 2015, was heard by Richard A. Simons, J., and a motion for reconsideration was considered by him. Dennis M. LaRochelle for the husband. AGNES, J. The parties, Theresa M. Flor (wife) and Jeffrey W. Flor (husband), entered into a separation agreement (agreement) that, as pertinent here, merged into the judgment of divorce nisi prior to March 1, 2012, the effective date of the Alimony Reform Act of 2011, St. 2011, c. 124 (alimony reform act or act). The divorce judgment includes an order requiring the husband to pay child support until, at the latest, the child’s twenty-third birthday,[1] an express waiver of the wife’s right to seek past or present alimony, and an express reservation of the wife’s right to seek an award of alimony in the future. Upon the wife’s complaint for modification, brought in anticipation of the child’s twenty-third birthday, a judge of the Probate and Family Court ordered the husband to pay the wife general term alimony. The husband appeals, raising two issues. First, the husband argues that there was no basis for the judge’s determination that the child’s emancipation was a material change in circumstances that authorized the judge to determine whether it was appropriate to modify the judgment to provide for alimony. Second, the husband argues that the judge erred in not applying G. L. c. 208, § 49(f), the provision of the alimony reform act that creates a presumption that general term alimony terminates when the payor reaches full retirement age, because the initial order for alimony was entered in 2016, well after the effective date of the act. For the reasons that follow, we affirm. Background. The following facts are drawn from the judge’s findings, supplemented by uncontested facts from the record. The husband and the wife were married in 1984. They have one child of the marriage, who was born on January 2, 1993. During the marriage, the husband […]