Onyilogwu v. Onyilogwu

Citations

• 217 Conn. App. 647

Syllabus

The plaintiff appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court dissolving his marriage to the defendant and making certain financial orders. Following a trial, the court ordered the plaintiff to pay the defendant a certain amount per month in alimony for ten years. In a subsequent articulation, the court clarified that, in determining the amount and sources of the plaintiff's income, it took into account funds received by the plaintiff as temporary unemployment assistance due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Held that the trial court abused its discretion in making an excessive award of alimony and the case was remanded for a new trial on all financial orders: the trial court improperly included the plaintiff's temporary pandemic unemployment assistance benefits in its calculation of his income because those benefits did not occur with enough regularity due to their temporary nature and, thus, could not form the basis for determining the amount of income available for support purposes for the court's ten year alimony award; moreover, when this court subtracted the plaintiff's temporary pandemic unemploy- ment assistance benefits from the court's calculation of the plaintiff's income, the alimony order would have consumed most of the plaintiff's income, which was contrary to the long settled principle that the plain- tiff's ability to pay is a material consideration in formulating financial awards, and both common knowledge at the time of the court's 2021 decision, as well as common sense, indicated that the plaintiff would stop receiving temporary pandemic unemployment assistance benefits soon after the court's order of a ten year alimony award. Argued October 17, 2022—officially released February 21, 2023