Miscellaneous

How's this for a technicality?

In most divorce cases, ex-spouses who are required to pay alimony usually only must do so until his or her ex picks up with a new significant other, generally defined by when that person is cohabiting with someone else. Out in Florida, an ex-husband paying $2000 a month in alimony, discovered neat little way to define cohabiting partner:

Andrew Craissati of Palm Beach Gardens had challenged paying alimony to his former wife, Patricia, arguing that their agreement called for him to pay only until her remarriage or if she "cohabitated" with another person for more than three months.

Patricia Craissati, 48, was later sentenced to prison.

The 4th District Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday that she is indeed "cohabitating" - with her cellmate.

Two members of the three-judge panel concurred and ordered her alimony payments stopped. A third dissented, writing Craissati's involuntary assignment to a cellmate is not cohabitation. "I would affirm the trial court's reasoning that this is an absurd result," wrote Judge Larry Klein.

The couple divorced in 2001. In 2005, Patricia Craissati was sentenced to nine years in prison for a DUI accident which severely injured two men. She is at Hillsborough Correctional Institution on the west coast.

It's not like she really needs $2000 a month while in prison, right? And it's hard to feel sorry for a woman who badly injured two men while drunk driving. Bad precedent? Perhaps. Lawyerly bullshit? Absolutely. Fair result? I'm not complaining.

Full post as published by Quiz Law on December 11, 2008 (boomark / email).