Chinese Husband and Wife meet playing games online and marry in 2008.

Husband and Wife both just want to play games online though.

After they marry, they both play on Husband’s account.

Both rack up virtual or digital prizes and jackpots … on Husband’s account.

Turns out, Husband’s and Wife’s real life marriage is not as entertaining as their online game playing.

Wife files for divorce.

And Wife seeks half of the couple’s virtual cyber-wealth accumulated during their marriage.

At trial, a Chinese divorce court denies Wife’s property division claim for half of the couple’s digital assets. Because the Court doesn’t know how to value the web assets.

In one sense, these intangible assets may have no value in the real world in the usual sense. But Wife may simply have failed to meet her evidentiary burden of proof.

There is reportedly an active resale market in which Western newbies to the online games actually buy points accumulated by others in order to leapfrog to higher tiers of competition in the online games. And the resale market should furnish a fair market value for the digital assets on terra firma.

Read more in this China Daily article: Court dismisses woman’s claim to virtual assets and this Time Healthland article: Memo to Gamer-Wives: You Can’t Take it with You.

Budget cuts have been impacting the courts, including family courts, for years now – with no end in sight.

Leaving more cases, with fewer personnel and resources to process them.

Coaxing out every efficiency imaginable.

Encouraging introduction of electronic filing and eventual phasing out of paper filing.

All the while relentlessly inching ever-closer to testing the very limits of justice.

The above is from and about the courts of Oregon.

But it would seem to apply equally as well to Florida’s courts, including Florida’s divorce courts, in recent years.

Read more in this Yamhill Valley [OR] News Register article: Judge worries about court cuts.

Some clients (or opposing parties) are really quite businesslike in their approach to divorce.

They know they want to settle and it is just a question of arriving at the right numbers through negotiation.

They almost always have very specific final numbers in mind.

It is not unheard of for them to encourage their partner to sign an agreement behind their attorney’s back if they have an attorney or, better yet, before they hire an attorney.

After all, it’s all about the numbers. Not words.

Right? Wrong.

When it comes to legal matters, the words actually matter quite a lot.

As just one example …

Imagine a one paragraph marital settlement agreement. Yes, there really are such things out there.

Such an agreement always gets straight to the point – and the number(s).

“Husband agrees to pay Wife $1 million as full settlement.”

Do-it-yourselfers too often favor this type of language.

But what does that $1 million payment represent?

Is it lump sum alimony?

Is it lump sum child support?

Is it property division?

Is it a combination of all of the above?

Who cares?

Well, the Internal Revenue Service for one.

Precisely what the money represents will bear directly on the tax consequences, if any, associated with the payment.

As a result, both spouses will become interested as well, sooner or later.

For example, unless there is an agreement otherwise, alimony payments are deductible by the spouse who makes them … and taxable as income to the spouse who receives them.

Child support is neither includible nor deductible.

Equalization payments are generally neither includible nor deductible, but payments made in kind (by transferring things) may have tax consequences, sometimes unforeseen and undesirable.

The point is, settlement isn’t just about the numbers at all. The words count a lot.

In the end, all that really matters is the bottom line numbers, not the numbers that may be referred to in the agreement. If the words aren’t right, the bottom line numbers may be very, very different from the numbers specified in the settlement.

And that can be an unpleasant surprise that can hit you between the eyes.

Read more in this Florida Times Union article: TTT – December 28, 2010, Divorce & Alimony.

New York Husband and Pennsylvania Wife marry in New York in 2006. In time, they move to Maryland for Husband’s legal work in the Republican political organization.

By 2008, Wife decides she wants a divorce and returns, with their baby Daughter, to Pennsylvania.

Husband attempts to get a divorce court order for Wife to return to Maryland with Daughter, but the Maryland family court rejects Husband’s so-called emergency motion.

The family court awards Husband seemingly generous timesharing and visitation on three weekends of each month, with the qualification that only one of them may be exercised in Maryland.

But, because Husband, an Orthodox Jew, is forbidden by the strictures of his religion from traveling on Fridays from sundown until sundown on Saturdays, in practice, Husband avails himself of much less timesharing than he is actually awarded. Husband is reportedly angry and bitter over the visitation award.

In 2010, the family court grants Husband and Wife their divorce. But in the eyes of their religion and their religious community, Husband and Wife are still married – and not free to remarry others.

Because Husband refuses to grant Wife a “get”, an Orthodox Jewish religious divorce. Husband apparently feels that his dissatisfaction with the court-ordered timesharing arrangement justifies his withholding of consent to a get.

As a result, Husband is now the target of American Jewish media and American Jewish religious leaders and many individuals in Husband’s and Wife’s shared religious community. Hostilities toward Husband have even reached into Husband’s very secular workplace.

Read more in this New York Times article: Religious Divorce Dispute Leads to Secular Protest.

Michigan Husband and Wife have a child together.

Husband and Wife aren’t getting along.

Husband suspects Wife of having an affair.

Husband wants to know for sure.

Husband is concerned about the behavior of third parties around their child.

Wife leaves her e-mail password readily available to Husband.

Husband bought the computer Wife uses. The computer and the home it is in are marital property.

Husband allegedly logs onto Wife’s e-mail account and looks through her e-mail, in search of confirmation.

Some of Wife’s e-mails subsequently are offered into evidence in Wife’s child custody case with her former husband.

Husband is arrested for violation of a state law targeting hackers for profit or with malicious intent to cause damage.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years.

This is the first application of Michigan’s criminal statute to spouse’s spying on each other’s e-mails on a shared computer. Husband’s trial is next month.

Florida has a statute similar to Michigan’s.

Read more in this NBC Bay Area TV article: Is Snooping in Your Spouse’s e-mail a Crime? and this ABC World News article: Husband in Hot Water: Man Faces Five Years in Prison for Snooping Through Wife’s E-Mails.

Colorado Husband and Wife have two Daughters together, ages two and four.

Wife is from Argentina.

Husband and Wife divorce.

Custody evaluator appointed by the divorce court reportedly believes that Wife poses an abduction risk to Daughters.

Family court awards primary custody of Daughters to Husband.

Wife is awarded liberal timesharing with Daughters in the US. Wife is also granted the right to take Daughters to Argentina in the summer and in the spring.

During her timesharing with Daughters shortly after the divorce is finalized, Wife takes them to Argentina – for good.

Family court orders that Wife return Daughters to the US right away.

Wife pays no attention to divorce court orders.

Argentina is a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Husband files an application for return of Daughters to the US.

Husband is advised that the process could take eighteen months.

Read more in this [Glenwood Springs, CO] Post Independent article: Snowmass man haunted by international abduction.

Husband and Wife have two Children together.

The time of Husband and Wife’s exchange of the Children approaches.

And Husband allegedly punches Wife in the face … and knocks her out.

Police arrive. And taser Husband.

Who resists arrest.

Husband is arrested on charges of domestic violence and criminal threats.

Read more in this San Jose Mercury News article: Woman punched unconscious during child custody dispute.

Montana currently favors court records being public, as they are in Florida.

But privacy activists are seeking to limit public access to family court records, with the goal of protecting children.

At this time, proposals for restrictions are subject to public comment. The most extreme proposal would seal all family court records except final judgments.

Montana’s law librarian worries because parties without attorneys generally do not know how to apply what privacy protections are already available under Montana law.

Read more in this Washington Post article: Mont. Supreme Court considers access restrictions.

Illinois Husband and Wife have four Daughters from ages four to fifteen.

Wife is not happy in the marriage. Wife files for divorce.

Husband is not served with divorce paperwork. On the contrary, Husband and Wife reportedly reconcile.

Husband and Wife attend a holiday party together on December 5th.

Husband is allegedly intoxicated.

There is snow on the ground in the area where they live.

On the way home from the party, Husband’s and Wife’s car crashes into a light pole.

Husband is killed in the accident.

There are footprints leading away from their vehicle.

And Wife is nowhere to be found.

Subsequent searches, as permitted by the local weather, have turned up no leads as to Wife’s whereabouts or fate.

An unlikely and unforeseeable tragedy.

Which leaves Husband and Wife’s four young Daughters inadequately provided for or protected.

In this instance, the Daughters’ paternal aunt and uncle have reportedly filed for guardianship of Daughters. This is not necessarily a rapid or inexpensive process.

When parents don’t plan ahead and make arrangements for such unlikely and unforeseeable tragedies, their children are at risk of being taken into child protective custody and placed in foster care by child welfare agencies.

Have you planned ahead and made arrangements to protect your children from the unlikely and unforeseeable tragedy that has stricken this family?

In Florida, a straighforward will and a simple designation of a preneed guardian for your children can generally provide the care you want your children to have in such a situation … without the need for an expensive, drawn-out guardianship proceeding or child welfare agency involvement.

Why not add these items to your New Year’s resolutions – and actually follow through and do them? For your children’s sake.

Read more in:

• this Chicago WLS-TV ABC 7 news article: Records show missing mom had filed for divorce

• this Chicago CBS 2 news article: Police Hope To Resume Search For Tanya Shannon

• this Chicago Fox News article: Search for Tanya Shannon On Hold