Opinion
CASE NO. 96-0933
Opinion filed December 4, 1996 Rehearing, Rehearing En Banc and Certification Denied January 22, 1997
Petition for writ of habeas corpus to the Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, Broward County; Julie Koenig, Judge; L.T. Case No. 89-6168-38.
Robert L. Bogen of Law Offices of Robert L. Bogen, Boca Raton, for petitioner.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Charles M. Fahlbusch, Assistant Attorney General, Hollywood, for respondent Cochran, and Terry Ellen Fixel of Fixel LaRocco, Hollywood, for respondent Singer.
A former husband petitions for a writ of habeas corpus to secure his release from confinement for non-payment of alimony. We treat the papers whereon the petition has been brought as an appeal and affirm the contempt order.
We agree with respondent that no error has been shown. Until the court grants modification of the final judgment of dissolution and terminates alimony upon a finding that the former wife has engaged in conduct that should end alimony under the agreement, the former husband may not unilaterally cease paying alimony simply because he has initiated a modification proceeding. The trial judge has the discretion to insist on the payment of alimony until a final determination on the modification has been had and equally, we think, to enforce that discretion by the court's powers of contempt.
AFFIRMED.
STONE and PARIENTE, JJ., concur.