## Facts

- Adriana Bacardi and Luis Facundo Bacardi divorced after a short marriage and had no children.
- The dissolution judgment incorporated an agreement requiring Luis to pay Adriana $2,000 per month in alimony until either party’s death or Adriana’s remarriage.
- Luis stopped paying alimony shortly after the divorce.
- Adriana obtained judgments for unpaid alimony totaling $14,000 and a separate $1,000 judgment for attorney’s fees awarded incident to the dissolution.
- Adriana sought to enforce the judgments by serving a writ of garnishment on Robert B. White, trustee of a spendthrift trust established by Luis’s father for Luis’s benefit.
- The trust contained a spendthrift clause purporting to bar attachment of the beneficiary’s interest, judgments, and execution process.
- The trial court permitted garnishment of trust distributions to satisfy Adriana’s judgments and issued a continuing writ directed at future trust income as alimony became due.
- The district court of appeal reversed, concluding the former spouse could not reach trust income before it reached the beneficiary absent proof the settlor intended her to benefit.
- The Florida Supreme Court accepted review due to conflict with another district decision permitting garnishment of a spendthrift trust for alimony and related fees.

## Issues

1. Whether disbursements from a spendthrift trust may be garnished, before reaching the beneficiary, to satisfy court-ordered alimony obligations.
2. Whether attorney’s fees awarded incident to dissolution or enforcement may be collected through the same garnishment mechanism.
3. Whether a continuing writ of garnishment against future trust disbursements may issue, and under what limitations.

## Decision

- The Florida Supreme Court quashed the district court’s decision and remanded.
- The court held that, in limited circumstances, disbursements from a spendthrift trust may be garnished to satisfy alimony obligations before the funds reach the debtor-beneficiary.
- The court held that attorney’s fees awarded incident to dissolution or enforcement may be collected in the same manner as alimony.
- The court approved the general approach allowing such garnishment but limited its use to situations where conventional enforcement methods have failed or are inadequate.
- The court indicated that continuing garnishment for future payments may be permitted only as a last resort when traditional methods are unavailable or would be unjust.

## Legal Principles

- Spendthrift provisions are generally valid, but they may yield to the public policy favoring enforcement of family support obligations.
- Courts may allow garnishment of trust disbursements (as opposed to wholesale seizure of the trust corpus) to satisfy alimony arrearages and related support-enforcement awards.
- Attorney’s fees awarded incident to dissolution or enforcement are sufficiently connected to support obligations to be collected through the same limited garnishment remedy.
- Garnishment of a spendthrift trust for support is not a routine collection device; it is appropriate only when ordinary enforcement tools are ineffective, unavailable, or would produce unjust results.
- Continuing writs aimed at future support payments may be authorized only under similarly constrained, last-resort conditions.

## Conclusion

The Florida Supreme Court held that spendthrift restraints cannot be used to defeat alimony obligations: trust disbursements may be garnished, and related attorney’s fee awards collected, in narrowly limited circumstances—primarily when standard enforcement methods have failed—while preserving the general enforceability of spendthrift provisions in other contexts.


Bacardi v. White, 463 So. 2d 218 (Fla. 1985)