According to Items #1 and #2 of these orders, this means that neither party is supposed to sell off any stock or spend money that he or she owns individually or jointly except to pay reasonable expenses such as attorney's fees. Naturally!
It also means that neither party is supposed to take on an unreasonable debt load. The punishment for the violation of the automatic orders is--wait a minute--I copied this down in my notes--Ok, what it says at the bottom of the page of the automatic orders is "Failure to obey these orders maybe punishable by contempt of court."
Let me stop for a good giggle. Ok. Deep breath. I'm done with that.
Here is the story as it goes for most people. Yes, I realize there are exceptions. The fact is that when the guys are the primary wage earners in a marriage, the pendente lite period between the filing of the divorce and when the dissolution of the marriage is granted, is that period of time when guys disappear every darned bit of money they can locate, plus they are expanding their lines of credit like mad.
Women, who are often in the unenviable position of trying to support themselves and their children with inadequate temporary child support and allimony and often do not have access to the marital assets frequently run up debt as well, perhaps for more justifiable reasons.
Are there any consequences for that for the men who do it, let alone the women? Well, that's where all my giggling comes in. I've been around quite a bit now, and I've seen a good deal. There are no consequences in Connecticut to violating Items #1 and #2 of the automatic orders, at least as far as I know. Correct me if I'm wrong.
That is a problem sometimes; actually, a lot of times. There are no consequences to these orders. Or so it seems. In my experience, a party has to really work hard to be held in contempt. They have to maybe violate the order over 5 times, or something like that. I don't want to say that these orders are not worth the paper they are written on, but sometimes, it certainly seems like they don't. Especially in "money" cases. This is a good topic, though. I should think about doing a post on this issue on my blog, Divorce Saloon.
ReplyDeleteBy Jeannie Goldstein
www.divorcesaloon.com
Thanks for your comment. What I think most new litigants are shocked to find is how little court orders can matter on occasion. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. This is particularly difficult when you have an abusive ex.
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