LAW MARKS: Mark Johnson's occasional--and occasionally irreverent--review of recent developments in family law and civil procedure. For June 2003, topics include marital settlement agreements, beneficiary designations, child support, and third-party custody.
The Court of Appeals decided 7-1-3 in Hutchinson and Hutchinson not to enforce a provision in a marital settlement agreement that called for a retroactive satisfaction of accrued support. The parties' agreement, the majority held, could not give the court a power specifically denied to it by statute. The May 22 decision drew a concurrence and dissent from four judges who thought the agreement enforceable.
On June 5, the court affirmed the denial of PERS benefits to a surviving spouse whose husband neglected to change his beneficiary designation. The benefits went instead to his ex-wife, whom he divorced in 1985. Wilkinson v. PERB stands as a reminder to reconfirm all beneficiary designations and estate plans upon any change in marital status.
The court held in Shlitter and Shlitter, decided on June 12, that, under the Uniform Child Support Guidelines, the trial court should not have provided for an automatic increase in child support five years in the future, at a time when the spousal support was scheduled to decrease. It was error, the court held, to set the child support prospectively based on only one of many factors that might change in five years' time.
The Kentucky Supreme Court decided on June 12 in Moore v. Asente that the natural parents, having timely revoked their consent to an adoption, nevertheless had waived their superior right to custody of their child by signing the consent in the first place. The court remanded for a determination of custody, as between the natural and proposed adoptive parents, strictly according to the child's best interest.
Mark Johnson is an appeals attorney practicing in Portland, Oregon. He also provides attorney coaching, consulting, and collaboration on a wide range of family law issues. Mark is available to act as a reference judge in Oregon family law cases.
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