Filed: Jan. 16, 2015
Latest Update: Jan. 16, 2015
Summary: NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION PER CURIAM. After a 1998 trial, the parties were divorced by a judgment which obligated plaintiff Larry Pretlow to pay his ex-wife, defendant Donna Pretlow, $100 per week in permanent alimony. Plaintiff appeals an order denying his motion to terminate this alimony obligation. Because plaintiff presented a prima facie case of changed circumstances — based on what he claims was an involuntary retirement and an illness that greatl
Summary: NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION PER CURIAM. After a 1998 trial, the parties were divorced by a judgment which obligated plaintiff Larry Pretlow to pay his ex-wife, defendant Donna Pretlow, $100 per week in permanent alimony. Plaintiff appeals an order denying his motion to terminate this alimony obligation. Because plaintiff presented a prima facie case of changed circumstances — based on what he claims was an involuntary retirement and an illness that greatly..
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NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
PER CURIAM.
After a 1998 trial, the parties were divorced by a judgment which obligated plaintiff Larry Pretlow to pay his ex-wife, defendant Donna Pretlow, $100 per week in permanent alimony. Plaintiff appeals an order denying his motion to terminate this alimony obligation. Because plaintiff presented a prima facie case of changed circumstances — based on what he claims was an involuntary retirement and an illness that greatly increased his out-of-pocket medical expenses — we reverse and remand for an evidentiary hearing.
After considering the moving and opposing papers, and after hearing oral argument, the judge denied plaintiff any relief. In his oral decision, the judge recognized there was "a dispute" whether plaintiff's retirement, at the age of fifty-five, was voluntary or involuntary"; the judge, in fact, acknowledged plaintiff had made "a strong argument ... that his retirement was involuntary." Notwithstanding the judge's recognition of plaintiff's considerable factual presentation, which included evidence of a decrease in plaintiff's income and significant increase in his medical expenses, the judge seems to have recognized the law required an evidentiary hearing to test plaintiff's factual assertions, as well as defendant's responding allegations regarding her own circumstances. The judge nevertheless refused to order such a hearing because it seemed to him an unwise course: "the problem that I have in regard to doing something like [scheduling and conducting an evidentiary hearing is that] within a very short time the parties probably would have spent two years[`] worth of alimony just arguing whether alimony should be continued or not."
Although the experienced family judge may be correct about the time and expense of an evidentiary hearing,1 there is no doubt that if plaintiff's allegations are true, he would likely be entitled, in whole or in part, to relief from the alimony obligation. Plaintiff should not be indefinitely burdened by what may no longer be an equitable alimony obligation simply because of the apparent disproportionate financial consequences that would flow from proceeding in accordance with Lepis v. Lepis, 83 N.J. 139 (1980), and its progeny.2
The order under review is reversed and the matter remanded for an evidentiary hearing. We do not retain jurisdiction.
