Knight v. Knight
Knight v. Knight, 2023 UT App 86 (Mortensen, J.)
Family Law/Alimony
In a high-dollar divorce proceeding, the district court considered expense categories—from lawn aeration to body waxing—for inclusion in alimony payments. On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding:
- The district court exceeded its discretion by applying the wrong legal standard when calculating several of the alimony recipient’s expenses.
- Practice tip: In terms of alimony, the marital standard of living analysis is about the historical allocation of the parties’ resources (i.e. monetary resources) to each distinct category even if, historically, the spending was lopsided or one-sided.
- Practice tip: The alimony recipient’s potential expense in a particular category is not limited just because the payor does not submit a potential expense for that category.
- Judicial tip: Before calculating alimony in any case, consult Mintz v. Mintz, 2023 UT App 17, 525 P.3d 534, especially ¶ 24, and how it is applied in Knight.