The court’s jurisdiction to alter custody and support of the children is exclusive and continuing until the child or children attain their majority, and the decree or order fixing the custody of the child or children is final only as to the conditions then existing.
Where the petitioner agreed to a modified judgment after the respondent had remarried, implicit in the agreement was a waiver of the remarriage provision.
Remarriage of the parties does render the prior divorce decree unenforceable.
The first Illinois case to discuss the effect of a remarriage upon a prior divorce decree is In re Marriage of Leon (1980), 84 Ill.App.3d 50, 39 Ill. De. 480, 404 N.E.2d 1071, where the court held that the trial court in a first divorce action is divested of further jurisdiction with regard to the division of property upon the subsequent remarriage and redivorce of the parties.
The term “remarriage” as it appears in this section means the ceremony of marriage and not the status of marriage, and the declaration of the invalidity of petitioner’s remarriage did not act to reinstate the maintenance obligation.
Marriage settlement agreements may extend maintenance payments beyond the recipient’s remarriage.
Remarriage of the recipient spouse does not automatically reduce an unallocated award of maintenance and child support; rather, as is required in other cases where a modification is sought, the party desiring the reduction must petition the court to modify its prior decree.
Where ex-husband ceased his alimony payments on the remarriage of his ex-wife but voluntarily resumed his alimony payments upon the judicial declaration of invalidity of his ex-wife’s remarriage, the actions of the parties evidenced an intent that the term remarriage, as used in the parties’ decree of divorce, referred to a status of marriage rather than a ceremony of marriage.
The trial court properly denied former husband retroactive recovery of a portion of the monthly payments made to former spouse during the period she resided with her present husband before her marriage, where the payments were characterized as child support.
The provisions of a consent decree that the husband pay each year for two plastic eyes required by the wife violated the public policy against payment of alimony and maintenance after remarriage and was therefore a nullity.
Where petitioner testified at length as to the manifestations of his son’s emotional problems, treatment by various doctors and counselors, and the remedial educational program in which he had been placed, where the petitioner also testified as to the medical expenses incurred when another son suffered an ankle injury, and where respondent did not call any witness to dispute the nature of these expenses, nor did cross-examination of the petitioner establish any serious dispute as to the nature of the expenses, the petitioner established that the medical expenses were extraordinary in nature and therefore modification of respondent’s obligation to pay child support was granted.
Modification of child support that required the defendant pay medical and dental but not optical expenses for the children was not a breach of discretion.
Trial court properly ordered husband to pay $5,094.35 in medical expenses where it was provided in the original divorce decree that husband was to pay extraordinary medical expenses.
Order allowing wife attorney’s fees and costs for defending the appeal was in error where although the order found that wife was unemployed and had no income of her own, the record disclosed that she held, with her second husband, two joint bank accounts with funds totaling $2,700, and owned a home in joint tenancy, and the order made no finding as the husband’s ability to pay.
The same factors considered under 750 ILCS 5/504(b)(2) in making an initial award of maintenance are used in determining whether and to what degree a maintenance award shall be modified under subsection (a).
If a source of income, no matter how certain the probability it will continue, should cease, this matter then becomes an appropriate fact to support a petition to modify an order of maintenance.
In determining whether and to what degree a maintenance award shall be modified, the circuit court is to consider the same factors to be assessed in making the initial award.
Evidence that ex-wife and her boyfriend did not intermingle any funds, and neither paid any money towards the other’s household expenses supported a finding that they were not engaged in a conjugal relationship; the boyfriend testified that he would occasionally buy food for the ex-wife as a recompense for that which he had consumed as leftovers and that he would replenish gas in her car on those occasions that he would use it.
There was a change of circumstances after the divorce decree was entered where the husband received an additional $13,230 of income for a year prior to the divorce; the court had the authority to enter an order compelling him to pay an additional amount for child support despite the fact that if the books had been examined at the time of the decree, a bookkeeping entry as to the bonus would have been found.
Where defendant lost his job, was adjudicated a bankrupt, then chose to revive a debt to the potential harm of his child, there was insufficient change of circumstance.
Having an income of $490.36 a month, and debts including a judgment against him for $143.65, an internal revenue assessment of $141.49, a doctor bill of $145, and attorney’s fees for his defense in another lawsuit did not constitute sufficient basis for reducing the child support payments for $56 twice a month to $20 per week.
When an agreement of the parties with respect to alimony and property rights is adopted by the court and incorporated into the final decree, the agreement becomes merged in the decree, and the rights of the parties thereafter rest upon the decree; however, the incorporation of the settlement agreement into the decree by agreement of the parties does not affect the power of the court to alter that provision of the decree when a change of circumstances warrants a modification.
Under the approach for valuing a pension, the trial court may, upon determination of the present value of the pension benefits, award the value of the benefit to the employee spouse and offset that award with other marital property of similar value.
The immediate offset approach is best used when there is sufficient actuarial evidence to determine the present value of the pension, when the employee spouse is close to retirement age, and when there is sufficient marital property to allow an offset.
Trial court did not abuse its discretion by valuing respondent’s share in the corporation in accordance with appraisal of said assets by following the capitalization of excess earnings method outlined in Revenue Rules 59-60 and 68-609.
Evidence as to value of the stock awarded to respondent as non-marital property could do nothing other than show that respondent’s financial worth was greater than that shown by the record and such a showing could not work to respondent’s benefit insofar as the division of marital property was concerned.
In light of the fact that respondent’s certified public accountant placed the corporation’s net worth at slightly over one-half of petitioner’s valuation, cause was remanded for reconsideration of value of the stock of husband’s closely held corporation, and modification of the previously ordered distribution of marital property was authorized if, upon remand, such modification was dictated by the evidence elicited on the revaluation of stock.
In the absence of evidence of the stock’s value, the reviewing court could not readily determine the reasonableness of the trial court’s action in awarding the stock and the car to husband, supposedly offset by the award of furniture to wife. There was no basis in the record on which to determine whether the trial court’s award was a distribution in “just proportions,” and accordingly, the trial court erred in failing to value the stocks prior to allocating the marital property.
