Roger Miles Monroe

Eustice Myrl Shiver, a retired Army lieutenant colonel employed by the Butler County Board of Education as a full-time JROTC instructor, filed a declaratory-judgment action seeking a ruling that state-mandated salary increases from 1993, 1994, and 1996 applied to his full salary rather than only the non-Army-reimbursed portion. The trial court entered judgment for the Board, denying all relief and noting that portions of the claims were barred by the two-year statute of limitations in § 6-2-38(m). On appeal, the Court of Civil Appeals declined to consider the statute-of-limitations argument because it was not properly preserved and reversed the trial court's ruling on the pay-raise issue, holding that the mandatory pay-raise acts required the increases to be applied to Shiver's total compensation. The decision turned on the interpretation of the pay-raise statutes and the nature of the split-funded JROTC salary arrangement.

labor & employment

In this case, a divorced mother petitioned the trial court to modify the 1985 divorce judgment by ordering the father to provide postminority support for their daughter's college education at the University of South Alabama. The trial court granted the petition and required the father to pay $11,200 annually toward expenses including tuition, room, board, and other costs, subject to conditions such as full-time enrollment and maintaining a C average. The father appealed, arguing both that the payments would cause him undue financial hardship and that certain expenses like personal costs were improperly included. The Court of Civil Appeals held that the evidence supported the father's ability to pay without undue hardship but reversed the judgment because the trial court had included expenses not directly related to education and remanded for recalculation limited to such expenses.

family law

John C. Danley sued his employer, Dorsey Trailers, Inc., seeking workers' compensation benefits for an alleged work-related injury. The trial court granted the employer's motion for summary judgment. Danley appealed, contending that the judgment violated Alabama Code § 25-5-88 by omitting required findings of fact and conclusions of law. The appellate court reversed and remanded, ruling that the statute mandates such a statement even in summary judgment cases so that appellate review is possible, and that the absence of these elements prevents review of the decision.

labor & employmentprocedure

This case concerned repeated efforts by the ex-wife in a 1993 Alabama divorce to vacate or modify the decree years later on grounds of fraud in the separation agreement and to obtain postminority support, a life estate in the marital home, alimony-in-gross, and other relief for the parties' adult son disabled by muscular dystrophy. The trial court denied the requests to set aside the judgment, limited modifications to the parties' 1995 agreement labeling payments as spousal support, and rejected most additional claims while the ex-husband sought counter-modifications. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed the denial of attorney fees and the washing-machine claim, but reversed in part and remanded, holding that the trial court erred in failing to address certain support and property issues under the governing divorce judgment and modification agreement. The court reasoned that earlier unappealed orders were final and that the modification agreement controlled the ongoing obligations tied to the son's lifetime.

family law

In this post-divorce custody dispute, the father petitioned to modify the existing joint-custody arrangement that gave the mother primary physical custody of the two children, citing the mother's temporary summer living situation in an apartment with her fiancé. The trial court granted the father primary physical custody after a hearing. On appeal, the court reversed, holding that the father had not satisfied the McLendon standard because the evidence showed only a temporary arrangement, no neglect by the mother, and no proof that a custody change would materially promote the children's best interests enough to outweigh the disruption of uprooting them; the mother had since married and returned to her stable four-bedroom home, with no plans to relocate.

family law

In Kelley v. State Department of Revenue, a divorced wife challenged the Department's assessment of state income tax on periodic payments she received from her ex-husband under their 1991 divorce judgment, which entitled her to 40% of his salary; she contended the payments were a nontaxable property settlement, while the Department and her ex-husband (who intervened) maintained they were deductible alimony. The trial court ruled the payments qualified as alimony that the wife should have reported as gross income, and the Court of Civil Appeals affirmed after de novo review. The court held that the payments satisfied the federal definition of alimony under 26 U.S.C. § 71(b), as adopted by Alabama Code § 40-18-15, because they were cash payments under a divorce instrument, the spouses lived separately, and Alabama law causes such periodic alimony obligations to terminate upon the death of either spouse, distinguishing them from fixed property settlements.

taxesfamily law