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United States District Court for the District of Maryland
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Bar Association of Montgomery County, Maryland

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Maryland uses something called “the Bangs formula” to decide the marital share of an asset in a divorce case. The formula is called this because of a 1984 case called Bangs v. Bangs. Under the formula, the court looks at the number of years of a person’s working life, during which time the pension accrues. That determines the pension’s value. The percentage of the total working life that happened during the marriage is marital and the percentage that happens before or after is nonmarital. Any additional months of life or marriage after the pension stops accruing are not part of the figure.

A 2009 case examined the application of the Bangs formula. In that case, the husband and wife were married in 1990 and had two children. The husband was a police officer who sustained numerous physical injuries. He was eligible for regular retirement in 1997, but was approached by the county to take a disability retirement, which he took. The couple separated in 2003. The wife moved to Indiana.

The couple divorced in 2007, by which time the husband’s police department service during the marriage had been 12 years and 11 months. In his complaint for divorce, the husband asked for several things including child support, contribution from the wife for medical expenses and health insurance for the children, and use of the family home. The wife counterclaimed and a trial was held. Continue reading

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In Maryland, the court may appoint a “best interest” attorney for a child in a family law proceeding. He or she makes independent assessments of what is in the child’s best interest and advocates for these assessments in court. Sometimes one or both of the parents dispute these assessments.

In a 2010 case involving a best interest attorney, a native of the Philippines answered an ad placed by a United States citizen seeking a wife. They did not speak each other’s language very well. However, they married in 1996 and had three daughters. The wife filed for absolute divorce or in the alternative limited divorce. The Master found that the wife hadn’t been allowed to have contact with her daughters after she left.

At a pendente lite hearing, the court ordered that the wife could have visitation, that the husband had to pay her alimony and that the children needed to be represented by what’s called a “best interest” attorney to be paid by the father. The husband filed a motion to amend the orders, arguing visitation was not in the best interest of the children and that the therapist had concerns. He also said that the mother lived with someone who had a criminal record. The mother filed a motion for order of contempt arguing that the father wasn’t complying with the order. Continue reading

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Parents in Maryland and other states have the constitutional right to determine the “care, custody and control” of their children. There is a traditional presumption that a fit parent acts in the best interest of his or her child. The right to determine care, custody and control is not absolute, however. The issue of grandparents’ rights (or other third-party rights) sometimes complicates matters. Maryland jurisprudence on this issue is well developed.

In the seminal Maryland appellate case (Koshko), it was ruled that a grandparent must make a threshold showing either of parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances that demonstrate that a lack of grandparental visitation will have a substantial deleterious effect. A 2009 case considering the effect of Koshko on modification of an order arose from a situation between an unmarried mother and father and the father’s parents.

The father was seriously hurt in a motor vehicle accident in 2004 and was left in a coma. After that the relationship between the mother and the father’s parents became tense and the mother refused to let the father’s parents see her daughter. The grandparents petitioned for visitation and the mother sought only to limit the frequency of visitation. The visitation was granted on the schedule agreed to by the mother. The original order granting the grandparents’ visitation was made before Koshko was decided. Continue reading

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In Maryland, courts scrutinize attacks to prenuptial agreements carefully. They interpret prenups as they would any other contract between two consenting adults. In a recent case, a twenty-six-year-old woman had married a father of three. In 1988 when they married, she was working in a daycare center for minimum wage. The man was a successful construction company owner, not yet divorced with $2 million in assets.

Once the man divorced his former wife, he told the woman he wouldn’t marry her unless she signed a prenuptial agreement that his attorney had prepared, waiving any interest in certain items of his property. She signed it four days before their wedding, though later on the pair disagreed about when he had given it to her.

The prenup stated that both parties had the opportunity to consult counsel. The agreement listed various property that the wife would not have any ownership interest in. However, the agreement didn’t mention certain items of property, such as the man’s IRA. Continue reading

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Maryland divorces can be very stressful, having consequences for extended families, including grandparents. A 26-year study released last year found that the rate of divorce may depend at least partly on the strength of the relationship with one’s in-laws. The study found that a husband who has a close relationship with his wife’s parents has a risk of divorce that is decreased by 20 percent. On the other hand a wife with a close relationship to her husband’s parents has an increased risk of divorce.

The study conducted by Terri Orbuch, a research psychologist at the University of Michigan, looked at the relationships of 373 couples in their first year of marriage in 1986 and followed up with them. Orbuch explained that this study could be explained by the perceptions of husbands and wives. Women valued their close relationship to the in-laws, but saw them as interfering, whereas men did not take their in-laws actions as personally. Conversely, women felt taken care of when a husband made an effort to get along with her parents.

When a divorce happens, it may have an effect on how often grandparents visit with their grandchildren. In Maryland, since 2000, a grandparent seeking visitation must show (1) that there is parental unfitness or circumstances that show a detriment to the child without the grandparent’s visit, and (2) that visitation is in the child’s best interest. This is a tougher standard than many other states. Continue reading

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For many years, a difficulty in Maryland family court has been figuring out a workable system of visitation for parents when one parent moves out of state. Many families face this challenge when one parent gets a job out of state. Since the rise of video conferencing technologies and electronic communication, a common trend in other states has been judge-approved “virtual visitation.” Virtual visitation is essentially cyber-parenting in which a non-custodial parent uses personal video conference, a video phone or a webcam to visit with a child.

This type of visitation is used as a supplement to in-person visitation over holidays and the summer break, but is not a replacement for those real visits. However, a non-custody parent can virtually read a child a story or talk about his or her daily adventures or disappointments, thereby strengthening their relationship.

The concept of virtual visitation was first codified in the state of Utah and next to follow was Wisconsin. The latter encourages courts to use the availability of electronic communication as a factor in decisions regarding custody and parenting time. Virtual visitation has been codified in at least six states. Many other states are revising their legislation to incorporate virtual visitation.

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Our office was retained to assist with a divorce matter in Baltimore County.  The client was older, in her sixties, and made her living working with children on their religious studies.  Although she loved teaching her students, due to serious health problems, she was forced to retire.   Her only source of income was the small disability check she received each month.  Since the separation she had received no support from her husband.

On the other hand, her husband had been earning a substantial yearly income.  He had been employed by this same company for a number of years and earned significant benefits in addition to his income.   The client actually helped her husband secure this job after he obtained a two year conditional legal permanent resident card (also known as a conditional green card) on the basis of their marriage.

However, shortly after filing for divorce, the husband was laid off because he no longer had a valid immigration status and work authorization.  Instead of seeking assistance from qualified immigration attorney like the attorneys in our office, the husband attempted to apply for citizenship on his own before he was eligible.   Believing it was unnecessary, he never filed to remove the condition from his green card.  Upon learning he no longer had a valid immigration status, the employer had no choice but to lay the husband off.

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What is “limited divorce” in Maryland? The state recognizes both “limited” and “absolute” divorce. The latter is a true divorce. The former is a legal separation that may be pending the absolute divorce judgment. There are only certain issues in a limited divorce that a court can rule upon. Among these are custody, access to children, child support, how the family home is used and possessed, alimony and attorneys’ fees. Unlike absolute divorce, limited divorce does not deal with distribution of property.

Maryland courts grant a limited divorce for a no-fault voluntary separation that lasts less than a year. It also grants a limited divorce on the grounds of: extreme cruelty towards a spouse or child, excessively vicious conduct to a spouse where minor children exist, and a desertion shorter than 1 year.

As with absolute divorce, you generally may not live with your spouse during a limited divorce, even though you are legally married. The court has ruled, however, that there are certain circumstances in which it may be possible to live with your spouse during a limited divorce. You also may not have sexual relations with your spouse or have sexual relations with somebody else. If you do have sexual relations with somebody else while holding a limited divorce status, you will have committed adultery in the court’s eyes. The court might also require you to try to reconcile with your spouse, unless you both petition the court to say that you don’t want to do so. Continue reading

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In Maryland and elsewhere, disagreements over alimony can be the subject of very heated lawsuits. In a recent case, an appellate court looked at the marriage of a couple that married in 1990. The husband adopted the wife’s son from a prior marriage. At the time of the wedding, the wife was working as a medical secretary and she had a high school diploma and some community college. The couple decided she could resign and take on part time work in order to be a primary caretaker for the son. The wife also managed the finances and lived a fairly active life, in spite of fibromyalgia.

They satisfied a 30 year mortgage in ten years. They didn’t have outstanding debts and lived a comfortable middle class lifestyle. They purchased a second home from the husband’s parents and amassed $200,000 in a joint savings account. They started to have marital problems within the first five years of their marriage. The wife disapproved of the husband’s disciplining of their son.

Because of the wife’s issue with the husband losing his temper and disciplining the son, she and the son moved out of the house and moved in with her parents for a period. She came back to the marital home and they sought counseling from a pastor. Shortly after moving into the second house, the wife woke up with severe back pain, caused by a ruptured disc. This worsened her fibromyalgia. She couldn’t care for her son or the house the way she could before. Continue reading

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Couples who are getting a Maryland divorce often fight over marital property, especially the marital home. Once a court decides what property is marital property (such things as pension, retirement, or a deferred compensation plan) it may transfer ownership in order to adjust the equity of the parties with respect to the marital property. However, a trial court cannot order that the title of a marital home be transferred if the parties have already agreed in a formal agreement that the home is non-marital property.

In a 2010 case, an appellate court considered, among other things, whether a divorce court had the authority to transfer ownership of a jointly owned marital home that the parties had agreed would be non-marital. The couple in the case were a cardiologist and an attorney in their fifties with no children.

The parties filed a joint proposed statement regarding marital and non-marital property. They owned their residence as tenants by the entirety, but listed the property as non-marital on the statement. At trial, the husband did not appear because he was incarcerated for an earlier domestic violence altercation. Meanwhile the wife testified and called the husband abusive, describing how he humiliated her, criticized her, slapped and restrained her freedom of movement. Continue reading

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