## Facts

- The parties divorced in 2005 under a judgment incorporating a separation agreement requiring the husband to pay the wife periodic alimony of $2,000 per week and to pay her health-insurance premiums for three years.
- The wife suffered from leukemia and required continuous health-insurance coverage.
- After the husband’s three-year obligation to pay premiums ended, the wife’s health-insurance costs increased.
- The wife lived with a boyfriend and worked part-time for him; for a time, he paid her insurance premiums in lieu of wages, but later paid wages that did not fully offset her increased premium costs.
- The husband’s income increased materially after the dissolution (approximately $373,620 annually at dissolution to about $450,000 thereafter).
- The husband moved to decrease alimony, alleging the wife’s cohabitation reduced her financial needs.
- The wife filed a cross-motion to increase alimony based on the husband’s increased income and her increased health-insurance expenses.
- The trial court found a substantial change in circumstances and modified alimony upward to $2,175 per week, balancing the cohabitation-related benefit against the husband’s higher income and the wife’s current expenses.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court abused its discretion in finding a substantial change in circumstances sufficient to permit alimony modification based on the parties’ current financial circumstances, including the husband’s increased income.
2. Whether proven cohabitation altering the recipient’s financial needs under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-86(b) required a reduction in alimony or barred an increase.
3. Whether the trial court improperly imported a “15% deviation” concept from Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-86(a) to define “substantial” change for alimony modification.
4. Whether, and how, the wife’s increased health-insurance costs could be considered in determining substantial change and the modified amount.

## Decision

- The Appellate Court of Connecticut affirmed the modified judgment.
- The court held the trial court acted within its discretion in finding a substantial change in circumstances, principally based on the husband’s increased income and the parties’ current financial conditions.
- The court held that § 46b-86(b) authorizes, but does not compel, modification based on cohabitation and does not prohibit an increase when other changes justify it.
- The court rejected the argument that an income change under 15% cannot be “substantial” for alimony; the 15% deviation language in § 46b-86(a) concerns child support, not alimony.
- The court approved considering the wife’s health-insurance costs as part of her current financial circumstances in setting the modified alimony amount after a substantial change was found.

## Legal Principles

- Alimony modification requires a threshold finding of a substantial change in circumstances; review is for abuse of discretion, with substantial deference to the trial court’s fact-based judgment.
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-86(b) permits modification when the alimony recipient cohabits under circumstances altering financial needs, but it does not create an automatic entitlement to a reduction and does not bar an increase.
- The “15% deviation” language in Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-86(a) relates to child-support guideline deviations and does not set a numeric minimum for “substantial change” in the alimony context.
- After a substantial change is found, the court may weigh current needs and expenses, including medically related insurance costs, in setting a fair and equitable modified alimony award consistent with alimony factors under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-82.

## Conclusion

The appellate court affirmed an upward alimony modification where the trial court reasonably found substantial changed circumstances based on the payor’s increased income and the parties’ current finances, and it held that cohabitation under § 46b-86(b) is a discretionary factor that does not mandate reduction or bar an increase, nor is alimony modification constrained by a 15% threshold drawn from child-support provisions.


Schwarz v. Schwarz, 124 Conn. App. 472, 5 A.3d 548 (Conn. App. Ct. 2010)