Lawrenceville, NJ
Divorce and separation Lawyer at Lawrenceville, NJ
Practice Areas: Divorce & Separation, Family, Appeals
OUTCOME: Supreme Court agreed with argument.
The legislature's amending the Statute of Frauds to require all palimony agreements to be in writing in order to be enforceable would be unconstitutional if it were applied retroactively to cover oral ... palimony agreements that were already in existence at the time the amendment was passed.
OUTCOME: Parents may arbitrate custody disputes.
In a precedent setting decision, Fawzy v. Fawzy, 199 N.J. 456 (2009), Brian Paul successfully convinced the New Jersey Supreme Court that parents in New Jersey should be permitted to utilize binding no ... n-appealable arbitration, with a decision maker of their choice, as a means of resolving custody and parenting time disputes. Arbitration is a process where litigants choose a mutually acceptable individual (it does not have to be a lawyer or retired judge), to render a binding decision resolving their dispute. The public policy goals of arbitration are to provide litigants with a speedier, less expensive, more private, final alternative to traditional litigation through the judicial system. The Appellate Division had previously ruled that an arbitrator's binding non-reviewable custody and parenting time award was void as against public policy on the basis that it usurped the Trial Court of its obligation to insure that the children are being protected from harm. Brian argued that a per se bar on the use of arbitration to resolve custody and parenting time disputes violated parents' constitutional right to raise their children without interference from the State. The New Jersey Supreme Court agreed with Brian that parents have a fundamental constitutional right to make decisions involving their children, and that a Court could only interfere with the parents' decision if there was evidence that it would place the children at risk of harm. Included within the constitutionally protected right of parental autonomy is rights of parents to choose the forum, and individual, who will resolve their custody and parenting disputes. Accordingly, the New Jersey Supreme Court agreed with Brian that the Appellate Division was wrong in holding that an agreement to arbitrate custody and parenting time was void as against public policy, and instead set forth procedural safeguards so that parents could knowingly utilize arbitration as an alternative to litigating through the judicial decision. In so doing, the New Jersey Supreme Court adopted Brian's proposed test requiring a parent seeking to set aside an arbitrator's decision to overcome the difficult task of demonstrating that the arbitrator's ruling places the child at a threat of harm. Such a test properly balances the parents' right to have an individual of their choice resolve their dispute in an alternate forum than the formal court system with the need to insure that children are protected from harm.
OUTCOME: App. Div. reversed Trial Court
Brian G. Paul reversed a Trial Court's denial of a multi-millionaire Wife's request for alimony. The parties in this case were married for nearly 26 years in which the wife served in the traditional ro ... le of homemaker and primary caretaker to the parties' three (3) children, while Defendant concentrated his marital efforts on advancing his career and increasing his employment earnings to more than $800,000 per year. Post-separation, both of the wife's parents died leaving her a substantial inheritance. After a trial in which our firm did not represent the Wife, the Trial Court concluded that the Wife did not have a need for alimony. The Trial Court found that she had $12,000 per month of after-tax dollars available to meet the $11,500 per month of expenses it believed she required in order to live reasonably comparable to the marital lifestyle post-divorce. When calculating the Wife's $12,000 per month of income, however, the Trial Court imputed hypothetical investment income to the equity in the marital residence she was retaining, as well as retirement assets she had received in equitable distribution. In addition, the Court determined, on the basis of the Husband's expert witness' testimony, that the Wife would receive $6,000 per month of income prospectively in the form of shareholder distributions from a company in which she had an ownership interest, even though the expert had only reviewed one-half year's worth of the company's financial data.. The Appellate Division agreed with Brian that the Trial Court had failed to follow controlling legal principles and abused its discretion when denying the wife alimony, and remanded the matter back to the Trial Court for a proper determination. The Husband, unhappy with the Appellate Division's decision, filed a petition seeking to have the New Jersey Supreme Court review the case, but the Supreme Court denied his application.
OUTCOME: Trial Court's Decision Reversed
In a precedent setting decision, Appellate Division agreed that pursuant to the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, the law of the state that enters the first child support order governs the duratio ... n of a parent's obligation to support a child. On that basis,the Appellate Division agreed that a NJ Trial Cour's order requiring a father to pay for his son's college education had to be reversed, since Pennsylvania, which does not have a college contribution obligation, entered the first child suport order for the case,
OUTCOME: Trial Court Reversed
Appellate Division reversed Trial Court and ordered a plenary hearing after Trial Court denied Husband's motion to reopen a Final Judgment of Divorce so that he could share in $500,000 of stock options ... that he claimed Wife had failed to disclose at the time of the divorce.
OUTCOME: Trial Court decision reversed
In Weaver v. Weaver, Brian G. Paul successfully convinced the Appellate Division that in an intermediate length marriage, such as the 10 year marriage in Hughes v. Hughes and the 12 year marriage in We ... aver, the Trial Court must be required to analyze what actually occurred to both spouses during their marriage in order to determine whether the public policy reasons behind the creation of a permanent alimony award actually exists in the present case. One of the primary purposes behind the creation of the concept of permanent alimony is to compensate a dependent spouse who has sacrificed their career or educational goals in order to perform the non-economic tasks associated with the marital partnership, such as child rearing and homemaking. Therefore, permanent alimony is meant to compensate the dependent spouse for the "transfer of earning power" that often occurs during a traditional marriage in which the homemaker spouse's non-economic efforts increased the other's earning capacity by freeing them to concentrate on their career at the expense of her own. Because the Appellate Division agreed with Brian that the Weaver case lacked the characteristics for which a permanent alimony award is normally granted, it reversed the Trial Court's decision and remanded the case with instructions to consider a limited duration alimony award instead.
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