Public Act 99-0763 ties up some loose ends left after last session's sweeping reworking of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act.

"Polishing the new IMDMA"
By Zachary W. Williams
Family Law - July 2016

The amendments to the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act ("IMDMA") passed by the legislature in 2015 and effective the first day of this year represent the most sweeping changes in decades to Illinois family law. It's no surprise, then, that some errors and ambiguities needed to be addressed in follow-up legislation.

That work is being done by House Bill 3898, explains Chicago lawyer Zachary W. Williams in the July issue of the ISBA Family Law newsletter. (The bill became Pub. Act 99-0763 when the governor signed it on August 12.) "These clarifications and modifications are not meant to be substantial but rather necessary cleanup changes and technical corrections," he writes. His article catalogs the revisions, which affect the Illinois Parentage Act as well as the IMDMA. Here are some of the changes he describes - see his newsletter article for more detail.

Removal. The bill "[c]larifies that both parties are enjoined from removing a child from the jurisdiction of the court for more than 14 days" and restrained from "concealing a minor child of either party from the child's other parent," Williams writes.

College expenses. The legislation also clarifies that the upper limit for educational expenses is in-state tuition and fees at the U of I's Urbana-Champaign campus - "in-state" was not specified before.

Parenting plans. Pub. Act 99-0763 provides that "if no appearance has been filed by the Respondent, no parenting plan is required unless ordered by the court," Williams writes. It also specifies that "a parenting plan is binding upon the court unless it finds that the agreement is not in the best interests of the child, as opposed to unconscionable." Further, the bill restores a section of the IMDMA that allows the court to order counseling and parenting classes.

In addition, the bill provides that "parenting time may be modified at any time, without a showing of serious endangerment, upon a showing of changed circumstances that necessitates modification to serve the best interests of the child," Williams writes.

Illinois Parentage Act. The bill also adds definitions of "assisted reproduction" and "donor" to the Illinois Parentage Act and adds a section "that applies to the birth of a child as a result of a valid gestational surrogacy arrangement," Williams writes.

Left undone - legislative overruling of Squire

Williams also discussed a bill that did not advance this session, HB 1190, which would have legislatively overturned the second appellate district's controversial ruling in In re Marriage of Squire, 2015 IL App (2d) 150271.

Squire upheld a trial court ruling that the wife's attorneys had to turn over $60,000 of fees already earned by and paid to them to the husband's attorney, basing the decision on the "leveling of the playing field" doctrine. "HB 1190 corrected the ruling in IRMO Squire by modifying Section 50l(c-1)(3)" to provide "that the court shall enter an order allocating to each party's counsel funds held by party's counsel but not yet earned (including retainers)," Williams wrote. That language would thus prohibit the court from requiring a lawyer to "disgorge" fees already earned. But "after much debate" the Squire fix did not advance, Williams wrote.

Illinois becomes an income shares state

As Williams notes, a significant substantive change to family law was made this year in addition to the technical clean-up. Pub. Act 99-0764 brings Illinois in line with a majority of states by adopting an income shares model of child support calculation, which considers both the custodial and noncustodial parents' income. Illinois currently uses the flat percentage model based on the noncustodial parent's earnings.