finding that "[t]he reservation of jurisdiction [in the divorce judgment] d[id] not prevent the award from being vested, as it reserve[d] to the trial court the right to change the amount of the monthly payments and not the amount of the entire award. The wife's entitlement to the $500,000 [wa]s made clear from the context of the award."
How later courts described this case
- finding that "[t]he reservation of jurisdiction [in the divorce judgment] d[id] not prevent the award from being vested, as it reserve[d] to the trial court the right to change the amount of the monthly payments and not the amount of the entire award. The wife's entitlement to the $500,000 [wa]s made clear from the context of the award."
- holding that the wife’s testimony outlining the family living expenses constituted evidence from which the trial court could find that “ ‘the needs of the children exceed ... the maximum support pursuant to the guidelines’ ”
- reversing a judgment denying an award of postminority educational support on the ground that Bay-liss “overstepped the constitutional] boundary between the legislature's] duty to make laws and the court’s duty to rule on those laws”
- concluding that, under a substantially similar Alabama law, "a member of an LLC has no interest in property owned by the LLC"
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
I agree with the main opinion that the trial court's judgment must be reversed on the issues of retaining jurisdiction over the alimony-in-gross payments, placing a lien on the Academy's property, and the constitutionality of Ex parte Bayliss , 550 So.2d 986 (Ala. 1989).
I believe the judgment awarding $500,000 to the wife as alimony in gross, coupled with the wife's ability to earn a steady income and the husband's declining income, supports the trial court's judgment declining to award the wife periodic alimony. I also believe that the holding of Dyas v. Dyas , 683 So.2d 971
(Ala.Civ.App. 1995), aff'd and remanded 683 So.2d 974 (Ala. 1996), cited in the main opinion, is not contrary to the trial court's judgment; evidence at trial in this case indicated that, although the couple's lifestyle before the divorce included numerous luxuries, the husband's ability to pay for those luxuries was diminishing.
Moreover, to the extent that the trial court awarded the maximum amount of child support under the child-support *Page 160
guidelines, after imputing total gross income to the husband and to the wife that exceeded the uppermost limit of those guidelines, I cannot agree that such an award amounted to an abuse of discretion. See Bridges v. Bridges , 607 So.2d 289
(Ala.Civ.App. 1992). Because I would defer to the trial court's judgment as to the resolution of those two issues, I must respectfully dissent as to the reversal of the trial court's judgment on those issues.