Bill No. 1388 was recently introduced in the New Jersey Senate with an identical, companion bill, Bill No. 685, also introduced in the Assembly. This bill amends New Jersey Statute 2A:34-23, concerning child support and alimony, to provide that an obligor’s child support or alimony payments may be modified when an obligor’s income is diminished due to unemployment, temporary disability or other similar circumstance.

Child support modification. Under the provisions of the bill, the court would be allowed to modify child support payments based upon changed circumstances, which may include a diminishment of the obligor’s income due to unemployment, temporary disability or similar circumstances for a period lasting longer than six months, unless the court determines that such diminution in income was deliberately incurred by the obligor in order to evade such support obligation or that the obligor has failed to make reasonable efforts to secure alternative employment.

Alimony payment modification. The bill would also amend the alimony provisions of New Jersey law concerning permanent, limited duration, and rehabilitative alimony to clarify when a modification of alimony payments may be made. Those provisions concerning reimbursement alimony would remain unchanged, therefore this type of alimony could not be modified. The bill provides that the court may modify an award of permanent, limited or rehabilitative alimony based either upon changed circumstances which may include a diminishment of the obligor’s income due to unemployment, temporary disability or any other similar circumstance for a period lasting longer than six months, or upon the nonoccurrence of circumstances that the court found would occur at the time of the award. However, the bill provides that modification of an award would not occur if the court determines that such diminution in income was deliberately incurred by the obligor in order to evade such alimony obligation or that the obligor has failed to make reasonable efforts to secure alternative employment.

The Senate and Assembly bills are annexed here – Bill No. 1388; and, Bill No. 685