All's fair in love... and divorce
A California court recently disregarded a man’s 2021 income and expense declaration and instead relied on evidence of his true 2020 income, upon finding it unbelievable that he would go “from a $540,000 job to $15,000 a month.”
The respondent in the case of In re the Marriage of Pedro Aviles and Jessica Vulovic filed a divorce petition from her then-husband in October 2006. At the time, she believed that she would automatically be divorced six months from the petition’s filing.
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In March 2011, she married the appellant. That May, she found out that her divorce was not final. It only became so in March 2012. The appellant and the respondent went through two more marriage ceremonies in April and September 2013.
In January 2020, the parties separated, and the appellant filed a divorce petition. That April, he discovered that the respondent was still married when they first got married. That August, the respondent requested orders for spousal support and attorney fees from the court.
In November 2020, the appellant amended his petition to ask for annulment. He filed a 2020 income and expense declaration claiming a monthly salary of $11,538. In March 2021, he submitted a new income and expense declaration, which provided that he started working for a new employer in January 2021 and currently had a monthly salary of $10,416, plus monthly commissions of $5,208.
The respondent requested sanctions from the court based on the appellant’s alleged perjury. She provided documents from his ex-employer which showed that his 2020 income was $532,795.30. She argued that it was not believable that the appellant would leave a job paying a monthly average of $44,399 to a job paying $15,624 monthly.
The trial court found that the respondent was, at minimum, a putative spouse of the appellant because the parties both believed that they were married to each other in March 2011.
The trial court awarded the respondent $12,541 in attorney fees and $9,353 in temporary monthly spousal support, calculated using the appellant’s 2020 income of $538,795. According to the trial court, the appellant was doing whatever he could to avoid paying any kind of support and was playing games by refusing to provide proof of his income.
The California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District, Division Two affirmed the trial court’s orders. The appellate court agreed that the respondent was at least a putative spouse because she sufficiently showed that, in March 2011, she had a good-faith belief that she was unmarried.
Therefore, the appellate court need not address whether the ceremonies in April and September 2013 amounted to a lawful marriage.
The appellant argued that the trial court wrongly used his 2020 income instead of his 2021 income for the spousal support calculation. He alleged that 2020 was an “extraordinary year,” that the COVID-19 pandemic prevented him from generating sales, and that he resigned in anticipation of being terminated.
The appellant claimed that he signed the 2020 income and expense declaration that his attorney prepared based on his pay stubs, assuming that it was correct. In the preceding five years, his average annual income was $225,000, he said.
In response, the appellate court found that, because the appellant had filed a false 2020 income and expense declaration, the trial court reasonably decided to disregard his 2021 income and expense declaration in favor of his actual 2020 income. Given the state of the record, the only credible evidence of the appellant’s likely 2021 income was his true 2020 income, in line with the evidence that the respondent provided.
Even if the trial court found the 2021 declaration credible, it was entitled to impute additional income based on the appellant’s earning capacity and to rely on the true 2020 income as evidence of his earning capacity, the appellate court said.
