In an alimony case captioned Tanner v. Tanner, the Florida Court of Appeal recently ruled that in order to determine whether a payor’s voluntary retirement is reasonable, a trial court is required to consider the payor’s age, health, reason for retiring, type of work, and the age at which others who perform the same type of work normally retire.
In Tanner v. Tanner, the Husband appealed the trial court’s order denying his petition for modification of his divorce decree. The parties were divorced in January 2016. The final judgment of dissolution required the Husband to pay permanent periodic alimony to the Wife. In September 2018, the Husband filed a petition to modify the divorce decree in which he sought to eliminate or reduce the amount of his alimony payments.
In the Husband’s supplemental petition for modification of alimony, the Husband stated that his employer terminated his employment, and that his medical condition precluded him from finding similar employment. The trial court denied the Husband’s petition for modification of alimony based upon the fact that it found the Husband’s retirement at age 64 to be unreasonable. In his appeal, the Husband argued that his retirement was reasonable based on his age and his failing health.