Q. My lawyer gave me a court financial statement form to fill out while she is away on vacation because we go to court for temporary orders right after she gets back.  She told me that there is a new case that says I have to separate out all of the expenses for each of our children and myself.  She stressed the need for it to be precise or else I might not get alimony. I haven’t worked in 18 years because we have five children.

Anyway, the form does not provide the spaces for what I’m being asked to do. Can you help me understand what I am doing, why and how to do it right?

A. The new case is Cavanagh v. Cavanagh issued by the Appeals Court July 9, but it is the second Cavanagh case so make sure you read the right one if you look it up.  The first Cavanagh case set out a process in cases where child support and alimony will be awarded where the court has to look at what happens if child support is calculated first, what happens if alimony is calculated first, followed by a tax analysis to determine the after-tax available incomes to the family.

The new Cavanagh case changed the definition of income for purposes of calculating child support and possibly alimony although that is less clear. The new decision also says the court cannot consider a child support order when making an alimony order because child support is strictly intended to support the children and alimony is strictly for supporting a former spouse.  There was no guidance on how to handle things like the mortgage and utilities on a home occupied by a parent and children or how to handle automobile expenses for the parent who is driving their children to their activities. There is no guidance on how to determine vacation expenses or food bills. If one were to follow the letter of the decision, you would literally have to parse out expenses individually for each family member.  Most lawyers are struggling to figure out the best way to do this.

The financial statement worksheet does not provide for this analysis.  You should gather all of your spending data for the last year.  Make an excel spreadsheet allocating columns for each child and yourself and allocate all the expenses that are clearly for a particular person in their column. Then take family expenses and divide by 6 putting 1/6 in each column. Send that data to your lawyer.

Email questions to whickey@brickjones.com