## Facts

- Thomas and Cynthia Boemio married in 1985, lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, and had two children.
- Thomas had advanced education (master’s degree and MBA) and worked for the Federal Reserve Board (including a temporary Swiss bank assignment).
- Cynthia had a high school education with one year of college and worked primarily in retail management, later taking a less demanding administrative position with reduced pay.
- The parties maintained a “securely middle class” standard of living, described as comfortable but not extravagant, and paid off their home mortgage.
- Thomas moved out in January 2006 and filed for divorce in May 2006; Cynthia sought alimony and other relief in a countercomplaint.
- After a two-day trial, the circuit court found Cynthia could not maintain the marital standard of living without alimony and that an unconscionable disparity would persist between the parties’ post-divorce standards of living absent support.
- The circuit court awarded Cynthia indefinite alimony of $3,000 per month after analyzing the statutory factors in Md. Code, Family Law § 11-106(b) and also consulting American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML) spousal support guidelines as a nonbinding reference.

## Issues

1. Whether, in determining the amount and duration of alimony under Md. Code, Family Law § 11-106, a circuit court may consult non-legislative alimony guidelines as an aid when those guidelines are not authorized by statute or rule.
2. Whether the trial court’s use of such guidelines improperly affected the indefinite duration or amount of the alimony award.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of Maryland affirmed the intermediate appellate court and the circuit court’s award.
- The court held that a trial court may consult guidelines from a reliable and neutral source as an aid in applying FL § 11-106, so long as the guidelines do not conflict with or undermine the statutory considerations and are not treated as controlling.
- The court concluded the trial judge conducted a fully articulated analysis of the FL § 11-106(b) factors before referencing the AAML guidelines and expressly stated the guidelines were not authoritative.
- The court upheld the $3,000 per month indefinite alimony award as consistent with the statutory framework and the finding of unconscionable disparity.

## Legal Principles

- FL § 11-106(b) provides the governing factors for determining both the amount and duration of alimony; those statutory factors remain controlling.
- A court may consult non-legislative guidelines as an interpretive aid if they are from a reliable and neutral source, do not conflict with or undermine statutory factors, and are not used as a binding rule of decision.
- Indefinite alimony may be appropriate when the statutory analysis supports a finding that, absent such an award, an unconscionable disparity would exist between the parties’ post-divorce standards of living despite reasonable efforts toward self-support.

## Conclusion

The Court of Appeals of Maryland upheld indefinite alimony and approved limited consultation of nonbinding alimony guidelines, emphasizing that courts must base alimony decisions on the statutory factors and may use outside guidelines only as a noncontrolling aid consistent with the statute.


Boemio v. Boemio, 414 Md. 118, 994 A.2d 911 (Md. 2010)