John Fernandes

Recently, Representative John Fernandes filed Massachusetts House Bill HD4546 to amend the Alimony Reform Act of 2011, to address the decisions by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in Chin vs. Merriot – which our partner, Sandy Durland, argued to the S.J.C. – and in Rodman vs. Rodman and Doktor vs Doktor, which ruled that, insofar as the Reform Act’s presumption that alimony would end upon an alimony payer’s reaching retirement age and/or upon the recipient spouse’s cohabitation, those provisions would apply only to alimony payers who were divorced after March 1, 2012 (the effective date of the Act). The Bill would make the Reform Act apply to all existing alimony obligations, including those who were divorced prior to March 1, 2012.