Author: Paul E Rice, Jr. - Board Certified Divorce Attorney

A Florida Circuit Court order required one party in a divorce to pay the other's attorney's fees and further ruled that the fee award was not dischargeable in bankruptcy. In a recent ruling, the Third District Court of Appeals reversed that lower court decision stating that the law does not allow a state court to decide the federal issue of discharge prior to the filing of any bankruptcy proceeding. The court explained that the problem with the state court's judgment is that it reached an issue of federal law that is not yet ripe for consideration. A state court is free to place language in a judgment to memorialize factual determinations or legal rulings on questions of state law that may later assist a bankruptcy court in deciding, as a matter of federal law, the dischargeability of obligations created by the judgment.