Rita Franz v. David J. Franz
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
Date FiledOctober 13, 2021
Docket2D20-3310
StatusPublished
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Full Opinion
DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA
SECOND DISTRICT
RITZ FRANZ,
Appellant,
v.
DAVID FRANZ,
Appellee.
No. 2D20-3310
October 13, 2021
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Pinellas County; Christopher M.
Labruzzo, Judge.
Ingrid Anderson, Clearwater, for Appellant.
Mark A. Neumaier, Tampa, for Appellee.
SLEET, Judge.
Rita Franz, the Former Wife, challenges the Final Judgment on
Modification of Alimony. We affirm without comment the trial
court's reduction in alimony but reverse and remand for the trial
court to order the modification to be retroactive to the date of the
Former Wife's first receipt of social security.
In its Final Judgment on Modification of Alimony, the trial
court ordered the reduction in alimony to be retroactive to the date
of filing of the petition, which the Former Wife argues, and the
Former Husband concedes, was error. A trial court has the
discretion to modify alimony effective from the date the petition for
modification was filed or any date subsequent to the filing of the
petition. See Gurdian v. Gurdian, 198 So. 3d 65, 68 (Fla. 2d DCA
2015). Here, the evidence presented indicated that the Former Wife
did not receive her social security income until some point after
August 2018 when she turned sixty-five. Because one of the bases
of the alimony modification was the Former Wife's increased
income, the modification should have been retroactive to the date of
her first receipt of social security. Accordingly, we reverse and
remand for the trial court to order the modification of the alimony
to be retroactive to the date of the Former Wife's first receipt of
social security.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
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ATKINSON and STARGEL, JJ., Concur.
Opinion subject to revision prior to official publication.
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