Following a jury trial, Martha Ann Horton Wife and Randolph Horton Husband were divorced pursuant to a Total Judgment and Decree of Divorce entered on June 5, 2009. During the trial of the case, the trial court refused to allow Wife to introduce evidence of a Temporary Order that had been entered in the divorce action on February 15, 2007. In her sole enumeration on appeal, Wife contends that the trial court erred by excluding evidence of the temporary order at trial. We granted Wife’s application for discretionary appeal in this divorce case pursuant to this Court’s Family Law Pilot Project, under which this Court will grant all non-frivolous discretionary applications seeking review of a final decree of divorce. Maddox v. Maddox , 278 Ga. 606 604 SE2d 784 2004. For the reasons that follow, we affirm. The record reveals that the Temporary Order designated, out of approximately $1.4 million in assets owned by the parties, two accounts, and provided that each party, per the parties’ agreement, could draw $2,700 per month from his or her designated account. Three dividend checks, in both parties’ names, and totaling $18,054.76, were placed in an account to fund Wife’s monthly draw. Husband would make his monthly draw from an account in his name, with said account funded via Husband’s railroad retirement benefits. In addition, each party could draw $300 per month in rental income from property. At the temporary hearing in this case, Husband also consented to Wife’s continued temporary use of the marital residence and its furnishings.
Wife contends that evidence of the Temporary Order should have been admitted at trial to show how much money Wife was losing and how much marital property was being depleted during the time period that the temporary order was in force. However, as the trial court correctly concluded below, the issue raised by Wife is controlled by this Court’s decision in McEachern v. McEachern , 260 Ga. 320, 322 1 394 SE2d 92 1990 “Evidence of post-separation support payments is not admissible unless the court determines that the evidence should be admitted for impeachment purposes to prevent a party’s perpetrating a fraud upon the court”. While evidence of a Temporary Order is relevant to the economic status of the parties, it is also likely to mislead and confuse the jury for several reasons. Court-ordered payments may reflect a court’s determination made without a full hearing. If the payments are the result of a consent order or an informal arrangement between the parties, the payments may represent an amount necessary to preserve the status quo or may represent some other accommodation. The amount of such voluntary payments might not be realistic in the long run. A rule allowing only evidence of voluntary post-separation payments as opposed to court-ordered payments would prevent the jury’s giving undue weight to a court’s determination of temporary needs and ability to pay made without a full hearing. However, such a rule would tend to discourage any generous impulse in voluntary payments. We have determined that evidence of any temporary payments has the potential to confuse and mislead the jury. Original emphasis omitted; emphasis supplied. Id. at 321-322.
