Author: Carl O. Graham

U.S. Supreme Court & Family Law Family law is a state issue, by and large, and international child custody disputes are rare. While there are a few federal statutes which apply to family law, they generally impose obligations on the states, and in turn the states will implement the directives…

FERS and Military Retirement Service Credit The Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) pension vests at five years: “an employee or Member must complete at least 5 years of civilian service creditable under section 8411 in order to be eligible” for the FERS annuity. 5 U.S. Code § 8410. Moreover, a federal…

First Comes Property, Then Comes Alimony Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In the context of a Colorado divorce case, the question might be rephrased as “which comes first, property or alimony?” And the answer, per statute, is spousal maintenance (aka “alimony”). Under Colorado’s maintenance statute, one of…

Court Required To Allocate Debts As Part Of Marital Estate Upon dissolution, the family law judge must “equitably” allocate the marital estate, which includes not just assets but also the debts acquired during the marriage. But that does not mean the court has to accept what one party claims at…

Deviation From Child Support Guidelines Cannot Be Permanent With limited exceptions, courts are required to apply Colorado’s Child Support Guidelines when determining an appropriate amount of child support. And that means when parents sign a child support agreement, they too must generally adhere to the guidelines. And while parents may agree to…

Marital Property Includes Separate Property Increase in Value In a Colorado dissolution of marriage, an asset owned by a spouse prior to marriage remains the property of that spouse (per (2)). But that does not increase a separate property increase in value. Only the principal amount brought into the marriage…

Change of Custody & Retroactive Child Support Normally, the law does not allow retroactive child support – a support modification is only prospective – i.e. it applies to payments due after the motion was modified, rather than to past support. (1)(a) provides: “except as otherwise provided in subsection (5) of…

Court of Appeals Upholds Denial of Veterans Benefits for Divorce Spouses In an unpublished Colorado Court of Appeals case, the trial court said “no” to veterans benefits for divorced spouses. The husband had been discharged from the military and was receiving monthly VA disability payments, but no military retirement benefits. The…

In 2014, Colorado’s maintenance statute was modified to provide trial courts with maintenance guidelines that set forth both an amount and duration of alimony based upon the parties’ incomes and duration of the marriage. Colorado has long had child support guidelines which create a presumptive amount of child support a court must…

Angelina Jolie Can’t Move Children In a reminder that the rich & famous are often no different from the rest of us when it comes to compliance with the laws, Angelina Jolie was recently in the news complaining that she was being blocked from moving out of the country by…