Opinion
December 5, 1961
Order entered on September 27, 1961, awarding plaintiff wife temporary alimony in the sum of $65 per week and counsel fee of $400, modified, on the law and on the facts, by reducing the award of temporary alimony to $40 per week, and, as so modified, affirmed, with $20 costs and disbursements to defendant-appellant. On this record we find the award of temporary alimony to be excessive.
I would affirm. Where, as here, there was some support for the determination of Special Term as to the amount of temporary alimony, the husband's remedy for any alleged unfairness in the award is to seek an early trial rather than appeal. In Bleiman v. Bleiman ( 272 App. Div. 760) this court said, "In the motions and appeals which have followed, the parties have seemingly lost sight of the temporary nature of temporary alimony, and have greatly extended its time and neglected their opportunities to proceed to a trial on the merits and determination upon a full hearing of the amount of alimony which should be paid in the event plaintiff is successful on the merits. * * * The best protection to both parties against any unfairness in the fixing of temporary alimony on the basis of affidavits is a speedy trial rather than an appeal or reference." (See, also, to same effect, Goldberg v. Goldberg, 4 A.D.2d 884; Amos v. Amos, 282 App. Div. 692; Yudell v. Yudell, 282 App. Div. 649. )