divorce – Attorney Evan Brown

Cardone v. Cardone, 2011 WL 1566992 (Conn.Super. April 4, 2011)

Here’s yet another case where social-media-as-evidence affected the legal relations between ex-spouses. (We’ve discussed other cases along these lines.) The court relied heavily on a blog that the ex-wife and her boyfriend maintained to order that the ex-husband’s alimony obligation be substantially reduced.

The pair divorced in 2001. Ex-husband was to pay ex-wife $250 per week in alimony unless and until either of them died or remarried. The divorce decree also made reference to a Connecticut statute which provides that a court can modify an order of alimony if the one receiving the alimony cohabits with an unrelated member of the opposite sex.

Ex-wife had a condo but rented it out to relatives. She spent months on her boyfriend’s sailboat in the Caribbean. As the court observed “their adventures [were] detailed in a lengthy and entertaining blog the couple posted on the internet, which was made an exhibit at the hearing.” (Anyone have a link? Let me know in the comments.)

Based on the blog evidence and the fact she’d rented out her condo, the court found that she was cohabiting with the guy, and that her financial situation had changed enough for the alimony to be reduced to $75 per week.

Updated 5/3/2011: To correct numbers in original post — award was reduced from $250 per week to $75 per week (not per month).

Musgrove v. Helms, 2011 WL 1225672 (Ohio App. 2 Dist. April 1, 2011)

An Ohio domestic relations court ordered an ex-wife to pay her ex-husband child support. Based on evidence that the ex-wife’s income had increased, the court increased the amount of support she had to pay. One of the pieces of evidence the court relied on was information from the ex-wife’s MySpace page where she had stated her income was “less than $30,000.” (This comported with other evidence suggesting her income was around $29,000).

The ex-wife sought review of the order increasing child support with the appellate court. On appeal, the court found the MySpace page to be inadmissible hearsay, and vacated that portion of the order.

The finding turned on a nuance of the rules of evidence pertaining to hearsay. Generally, hearsay is inadmissible as evidence, but there are exceptions. One of the exceptions is statements made by the declarant that are against her interest. The court found that although the MySpace information was used in a way adverse to the ex-wife’s interest (i.e., to increase her support obligation), as a declaration it was not adverse to her interest because it was not an assertion of fact which was by its nature contrary to her interest.

So this case is a reminder that notwithstanding any increased interest in the discoverability of social media evidence, the rules in place may serve to render the information discovered ultimately useless later in the litigation.