The House Judiciary Committee advanced legislation that would allow a judge to consider adultery or abuse by one of the partners in a dissolving marriage as the basis for award of alimony.
Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, R-Orem, sponsored HB236, would allow the judge to decide "fault" in a divorce, including whether one partner engaged in sexual relations outside the marriage or physically abused the other spouse or minor children.
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Current Utah divorce law has a no-fault policy. Under the substituted alimony bill, "the court may consider fault of the parties in determining whether or not to award alimony."
Before sending the bill to the full House on a 5-3 vote, members of the panel amended the bill to remove other grounds for finding fault — such as addiction to drugs, alcohol, gambling or pornography or whether the spouse had a felony conviction. They also scrapped a provision that would allow additional alimony to be awarded to a divorced spouse who had been a stay-at-home parent during the marriage.
Sandstrom called Rep. Fred Cox’s substitute of the bill "a hostile takeover" that distorted the intended purpose of his bill, calling it "extremely disappointing."
Cox, R-West Valley City, however, said he for one, would not have been able to support the bill as originally drafted.
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