Sergio Alvarez v. Mariela Stochetti

Summary

The Florida Third District Court of Appeal reviewed a dissolution-of-marriage judgment involving child support, life insurance securing child support, and classification of a promissory note related to an employment signing bonus. The court reversed and remanded for recalculation of child support based on the parties’ actual timesharing schedule and for reconsideration of the life-insurance requirement with appropriate findings. It affirmed the trial court’s treatment of the promissory note and the equitable distribution of marital assets and liabilities.

Holdings

1. The child-support award must be reversed because the final judgment used a 70/30 timesharing schedule that was not reflected in the parties' parenting plan. On remand, the trial court must recalculate child support using the timesharing schedule in the parenting plan and must consider all overnight stays, including holidays and the children's summer schedule.
2. A trial court may order an obligor to purchase or maintain life insurance to protect a child-support award only when the circumstances establish the necessity for that protection and the court makes appropriate specific findings. The trial court erred by imposing the requirement without findings in the final judgment or at the final hearing.
3. The trial court did not err in classifying the promissory note as a contingent debt without separately assigning it a value under the circumstances presented, because the husband's future payment obligation was inseparable from the related future income stream that reimbursed those payments while he remained employed at Morgan Stanley.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial court properly calculated child support using a 70/30 timesharing schedule when the parties' parenting plan reflected a different schedule.
2. Whether the trial court could require the husband to maintain life insurance to secure child support without making findings regarding necessity and special circumstances.
3. Whether the trial court erred in treating the Morgan Stanley promissory note as a contingent debt without assigning it a value or separately allocating it as a marital liability.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded