Prerequisites for California Family Law Code 4320: Factors in Choosing Level of Spousal Support

Introduction to Family Law Code 4320

The 4320 is a part of California’s Family Law Code, which outlines the basic framework of the laws in this state. While it is not the only series in the law, it and its subsections (all of which we’ll outline in the sections that follow) provide the specific aspects of the law that must be taken into account when determining exactly how alimony is determined within an individual trial.
The purpose of the statute could be broken down simply: to determine spousal support. However , the Walsh Act amendments – the family law legislation passed in 2000 to further govern spousal support – added a little detail to that, as it is intended to "give trial judges an analytical framework with which to evaluate spousal support cases."
The section actually does not govern the laws of the state regarding the amount of alimony or the duration of it – all it does is outline to trial judges which circumstances they should consider. The ultimate amount of payments required, if any, is left up to the judge.

Criteria in Setting Spousal Support

To reach an appropriate spousal support amount and duration, California Family Law Code Section 4320 provides a number of determinative factors, which the judge must consider. These factors require the judge to examine and analyze the following pieces of information to determine the best outcome for all parties involved:
(a) The extent to which the earning capacity, including skills, education and work experience, of the supported party is sufficient to maintain the standard of living established during the marriage.
(b) The extent to which the supported party contributed to the attainment of an education, training, career position, or a specialized skill of the supporting party.
(c) The supporting party’s ability to pay spousal support, taking into account the following:

• (1) The supporting party’s earnings, earned and unearned income, assets and standard of living.
• (2) The needs of the supporting party.
• (3) The obligations of the supporting party to support himself or herself.
• (4) The size of the separate estates of the husband and wife.
• (5) The needs and standard of living of the parties’ minor children, including any special medical needs to the extent that the supporting party has a legal responsibility to pay those expenses with the income or property of the supporting party.

(d) The obligations and assets, including the separate estate, of the supported party.
(e) The duration of the marriage.
(f) The ability of the supporting party to engage in gainful employment without unduly interfering with the interests of dependent children, including the time and the level of postsecondary education reasonably necessary for the supported party to acquire the appropriate job skills or training to develop a marketable skill or train for a new career.
(g) The age and health of the parties.
(h) The immediate and specific tax consequences to each party.
(i) The balance of hardships to each party.
(j) The goal that the supported party shall be self-supporting within a reasonable period of time, taking into account the standard of living of the parties during the marriage, the duration of the marriage, the supported party’s marketable skills, the job market for those skills, the time and expenses needed to acquire those skills, and the possible need for retraining or education to acquire other, marketable skills and the time and expenses necessary for the supported party to obtain this education or training.
(k) The criminal conviction history of the supporting party. Whether the criminal conviction history is related to an incident of domestic violence, as defined in the Federal Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (42 U.S.C. Sec. 10401 et seq.), against the supported party or the children of the supported party.
(l) Any other factors the court determines are just and equitable.

Importance of Each Party’s Earning Capabilities

The California courts will consider the learning capability of each party. In California family law courts are to presume that, in a marriage of long duration, the supported party has a working earning capacity that is commensurate with his or her marketable skills and the general circumstances of the supported party. (§ 4320, subd. (a) (4).) Further, the courts are to consider "the supported party’s marketable skills, the job market for those skills, and the time and expenses necessary for the supported party to acquire those appropriate, marketable skills." (§ 4320, subd. (a) (4).) Want or ability to work is not enough. A spouse may have an earning capacity, but that spouse must also have a desire to find employment and actually work. In re Marriage of Smith (1990) 225 Cal.App.3d 469.
In evaluating the earning capacity of the supported party, a court may look to the spouse’s health, age, job skills, marketable skills, etc. Further, the supported spouse cannot artificially decrease the earnings by refusing employment. A spouse’s financial or physical inability to work is not a factor. Further, there is nothing prohibiting a court from finding that a supported party has an earning capacity greater than the amount the party is likely to earn. In a recent decision, Marriage of Simmons (2005) 157 Cal.App.4th 142. The Court of Appeal affirmed the award of permanent spousal support. In doing so, the court found that both sides were equally educated and both at "the top of their game" in the work force. Further, the court found that both parties had nontransferable degrees in medicine. Further, the parties’ medical expertise was customize to the community. Finally, the court further found that even with equal opportunity, the supported spouse would have a difficult time seeking alternative employment because there was no ready substitute for the type of care provided by her.

Marital Standard of Living

Maintaining some semblance of the marital standard of living is important to many parties to a divorce. Family Law Code 4320 (a) addresses this concern and provides for the court to consider the parties’ marketable, earning abilities, and for the court to ensure that a post-separation standard of living is sustained.
Family Code 4320 (a) cites to the standard of living established during the marriage when enumerating the factors a court has discretion to consider when determining spousal support. It allows the court to consider these factors: the greater the ability of one spouse to maintain the same or similar standard of living as they experienced during the marriage, the less spousal support they will likely receive. A spouse with a substantial recording album following a marriage to an artist, for example, would certainly hope to maintain a standard of living commiserate to that enjoyed during the marriage, while a spouse earning several million dollars on Broadway, married to a starving actor, would expect their marital standard of living to provide for their new lifestyle once a divorce occurred.
Further, Family Code 4320 (b) provides for consideration of the paying party’s ability to meet their needs and of the separate standard of living of the receiving spouse after the dissolution. A court will allow for some sharing of the marital standard of living between the two spouses once a divorce occurs, to the level that each can reasonably afford.
Section 4320 (c) of the Family Code discusses paying spouse’s obligations and need to provide for their own self-support successively after a divorce. This factor makes it easier for a working spouse to pursue an income greater than they might have pursued during the marriage, since the standard of living enjoyed by the couple as a family no longer applies after the parties separate. The Family Code allows a payor spouse to pursue their own education, to enlarge their skills set in an existing career and to get involved in businesses, with most courts allowing enough time to ensure that the payor will not exceed their expected income during this time frame.
When a payor spouse has the ability to make more money or to earn additional education or skills, (and the receiving spouse does not have a similar need or ability), courts are justified in decreasing support payments. The court has great discretion in determining the support payments owed during a divorce. These payments may be set based on what the higher-earning spouse is likely to earn after a divorce as well as what the other spouse might earn.

Duration of Marriage

A critical factor that weighs heavily in the determination of spousal support under Family Law Code 4320 is the duration of the marriage. Generally, short-term marriages are characterized as marriages that have an impact period of less than ten years and long-term marriages are defined as having a duration of 10 years or greater. However, these terms are not absolute or exhaustive, nor do they necessarily dictate the amount or length of support payors will be ordered to pay. These terms help family law courts distinguish between the facts of the circumstances surrounding the parties’ divorce to determine an appropriate amount of spousal support; not the facts of the marriage itself .
Because there can be a large gap between the factual requirements for a short-term marriage and a long-term marriage, divorce law allows Family Law Courts flexibility in how it decides to characterize a marriage. If a marriage was of short duration, but the marriage has had a long enough impact period to require continuing spousal support, weighing the spousal support factors under Family Code 4320 will still be necessary when determining the appropriate amount and length of support.

Age and Health of the Spouses

The age and the health of both spouses is one of the important factors considered under Family Law Code section 4320 when determining what is a reasonable amount of spousal support. This code section asks the court to look at the "age and health of supported party." The understanding of the word "health" is subjective and can be based on many different factors, from mental health illnesses to physical ailments. Many times, the spouse that has been at home for years can expect to receive spousal support for a longer duration due to lacking employment opportunities in the current job market considering his or her age.
This is where so many judges rely on age more than they do health. They usually want to know how old a particular spouse is and how long it will take for that spouse to find a job, then determine spousal support accordingly. Keep in mind that this is only one of the factors that the court will look at when determine spousal support.

Case Law and Application

One important case that demonstrates the comprehensive nature of Family Law Code 4320 and the court’s discretion is Marriage of Stornelli (1995) 38 CA4th 28, a case that sets precedence even today. In this case, the appellate court determined that the lower court had exercised its discretion appropriately based on the evidence before it. Nevertheless, the court of appeal remanded the case to the trial court to consider additional evidence submitted by the husband regarding his ability to pay spousal support.
In Marriage of Vaughn (2001) 93 CA4th 906, the court of appeal affirmed an award to wife, even though there was substantial controversy regarding the true value of the community property. In this case, the expert testimony was so heavy that the expert became more of a participant in the trial than an impartial witness. While the court’s assertion of the inherent value of the property was deemed to go too far, the remained affirmed, in large part due to Wife’s attempt to artificially inflate the supposed separate property interests of sister and mother. In fact, according to evidence adduced at trial and the appellate court, the husband "received nothing from his former mother-in-law’s testamentary trust that would have contributed to the assessed values" of wife’s community property interest.

Potential Changes to the Laws

California Courts have always possessed relatively broad discretion in determining spousal support. This includes the duration and amount of support to be paid, if any, following a dissolution of marriage. The California Legislature in 1996 enacted Family Law Code section 4320 et seq., establishing specific factors for trial courts to consider in making spousal support orders. This was the first time that the California Legislature explicitly outlined specific criteria for spousal support orders, giving practitioners and judges a detailed roadmap for considering support orders. The enactment of these factors has led to increased predictability as to support awards in California. Further, trial courts now have a record as to what factors were considered when making an award. However, although providing a roadmap, Family Law Code Section 4320 is not a mathematical formula to determine the exact amounts and durations of support. Instead, it is a guide where the weight and applicability of the factors are to be determined by the particular circumstances of the parties.
Family Law Code 4320 is broken down into two main subcategories to consider; the supporting spouse’s needs and the supported spouse’s ability to pay. Within these two categories, a myriad of subfactors are used as a guide. As noted, no single factor is alone determinative, and a judge must weigh each one given the specific facts of the case, such as: Each case is unique to itself, in that circumstances change from case to case. Thus, the outcome will truly depend upon the particular facts of each specific matter. A trial court is required, absent an agreement by the parties, to analyze and apply all relevant factors set forth in Family Law Code 4320 with some degree of specificity, resulting in an outcome that provides certainty and predictability to the parties.
Co-habitation of the supported spouse is another factor to take into consideration which is not mandated to be reviewed by Family Law Code Section 4320, but it is incorporated in the analysis to determine if spousal support should continue or if its duration should be modified. It is not uncommon for one or both parties to remarry after a divorce , but something that does occur with more frequency than not is co-habitation. The amount of spousal support to which a spouse is entitled at the time of the parties’ marital dissolution is based on the parties’ marital standard of living. A supporting spouse is not always required to pay for a supported spouse to migrate to a new marital standard of living that would now include a new partner sharing the expenses. Again, this is highly dependent upon the particular circumstances of each case.
While there are no current proposals to amend Family Law Code 4320, we can view past amendments as an example of how there is a history of changes in the law. The law is always changing in the area of divorce and spousal support in particular. Ideally, any future amendment will be with a view toward providing increased clarity, avoiding inconsistency among courts, and enabling resolution through negotiation rather than protracted litigation. However, as is often the case, there are those who argue that spousal support should be restricted, and at the other extreme, even eliminated. As the battle over the permanency of this support continues, there are those who have proposed that alimony should be capped at no more than half of the employed spouse’s income, with a maximum duration of ten years.
Currently, there are at least three bills regarding spousal support which have been introduced in the State Legislature. Assembly Bill No. 322 proposes that there would be a rebuttable presumption against spousal support during second marriages, except upon showing of special circumstances. Senate Bill No. 186 would grant trial courts the authority to impute income to both parties when considering spousal support. Senate Bill 1208 is a proposed change in the law that would take into account the length of the marriage when considering and determining spousal support. These bills, among others, will likely be considered during the legislative session that commences in January 2012.
But until such time as any amendments are made to Family Law Code 4320, they remain a centerpiece of support determinations in California.