However, Remand Required To See If Husband’s Fee Request Was Overinflated.
In Marriage of Rubanowitz, Case No. B257782 (2d Dist., Div. 7 June 7, 2016) (unpublished), husband and wife having seven children were enmeshed in a divorce proceeding which had some unusual facts: (1) husband, who was an attorney, lost a major client so that his income plummeted significantly; and (2) wife’s father provided her over $1 million in money to maintain her lifestyle and fund her dissolution attorney costs. What maybe isn’t unusual in some dissolution proceedings is that husband had spent about $160,000 in fees and wife had spent $432,772. The lower court actually ordered wife to pay $140,000 to husband under “needs based” fee statutes of the Family Code so that he could keep litigating in the divorce proceeding.
The appellate court reversed, but on narrow grounds. It did find that wife’s father’s substantial monetary infusions could be considered in the “relative circumstances” equation for a needs-based fee award. (Marriage of Smith, 242 Cal.App.4th 529, 534 (2015).) However, the fee award was reversed and remanded because husband’s future litigation needs as far as attorney expenses might have been improperly calculated—a relook was needed.
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