A bizarre alimony case, as a husband is asked to revise his alimony payments upwards 35 years after his divorce.
First the story, then some comments. From Mark Fass’ Impoverished Woman Loses Bid to Increase $100 a Week Alimony (New York Law Journal, 9/2/09):
Their marriage was as short as it was spontaneous. Jan and Leonard S., as they are known in their divorce proceedings, married in August 1966 during a three-day stopover in Acapulco. They were told the marriage would make it easier for Jan to obtain a visa for Australia, where Leonard was headed on a Fulbright scholarship.
Jan obtained her visa, and the couple returned to the United States 13 months later, at which time they immediately and permanently separated — Leonard headed to New York, Jan to Maryland.
The couple’s fortunes also diverged. Leonard made a substantial fortune as a businessman and financier; Jan became homeless, and mentally and physically ill.
Now, nearly 40 years after she first filed for divorce and 35 years after she agreed to $100 per week for life in alimony — as spousal support was still known when the couple divorced in 1974 — Jan has sought an upward modification, citing a substantial change of circumstances and the danger of her becoming a “public charge.”
In a lengthy, sympathetic decision, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Matthew F. Cooper has denied that request. “[T]here is no compelling reason why [Leonard] should be held any more responsible than society as a whole for what has happened to the ex-wife. Nothing in the record suggests that he caused [her] problems or that anything involving their marriage somehow contributed to her leading the life that she has,” Cooper wrote in Jan S. v. Leonard S., 35438/1971. “The ex-husband has faithfully complied with the obligations imposed on him by the divorce decree and he has not missed making a single alimony payment over the past thirty-five years. No matter how great the ex-wife’s difficulties may be, her life is not the ex-husband’s cross to bear. There is no reason why he should shoulder any greater responsibility for her than he already has”..
Since returning from Australia, Leonard, now 71, has headed several prominent national corporations. He has been profiled by Forbes.com and Smart Business and named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.
Jan, now 67, has received public assistance since at least 1971, the year she, too, moved to New York. She suffers from an unspecified mental disability, according to the decision, and needs medical and dental work that she estimates could cost more than $100,000.
Since the couple entered into a divorce agreement in 1974, Jan has four times moved for an upward modification, including the present motion…
“Just how far does [Leonard’s] duty to care for [his] ex-wife extend?” Cooper wrote.
“It is impossible not to acutely feel how great the tragedy is that has befallen this woman’s life. … By the same token, it is hard not to have some empathy for the ex-husband as well. … Today, most couples who divorce after short-term childless marriages divide their property, say goodbye, and never have to deal with one another again. The ex-husband, of course, has met a far different fate here. Instead of being able to close the book on a painful chapter from his youth, he has grown old forever tied to the ex-wife by the alimony provision of the 1974 divorce decree.”
Ultimately, the judge rejected Jan’s arguments that a change of circumstances or the possibility of her becoming a public charge merited an upward modification of the alimony.
The ex-husband was ordered to continue paying $100 a week until he or his ex-wife dies. Some comments:
1) I love the headline–Impoverished Woman Loses Bid to Increase $100 a Week Alimony. One immediately thinks of an abandoned woman living in a slum and desperately trying to raise her children after her miser husband ran off and left her in poverty. I don’t think anybody seeing that headline would imagine that what we really have is a husband being exploited and at risk of being exploited further. I wouldn’t be quick to blame writer Mark Fass, though–writers generally don’t write the headlines, and his article is quite fair. I’ve certainly had half-asleep copy editors stick stupid headlines onto my newspaper columns before.
2) It’s a minor point, but don’t most alimony agreements have a cost of living adjustment? The alimony obligation of $5,200 a year was worth, at the time it was negotiated, about $30,000 a year in today’s dollars. Was the figure made to stay at $100 a week based on the idea that inflation eating into it would appropriately lower the amount as time went on and they both moved on with their lives? Was it a mistake she or her attorneys made? I assume some sort of COLA is built in to long-term alimony payments–if any family law attorneys would like to comment and educate me, please feel free to do so.
3) This man ended up making a lot of money, so he was able to afford the alimony, as well as the legal fees from her four attempts to get it raised. However, for an average guy it might have been quite difficult, and there are plenty of 71-year-olds today who would find even paying $400 a month in alimony burdensome. All this for a brief, childless marriage.
4) Unlike many in the fatherhood movement, I do believe that alimony is appropriate under certain circumstances, such as when one parent has made substantial career sacrifices in order to be the primary caregiver for the couple’s children, and upon divorce their incomes are very unequal because of these sacrifices. This case isn’t that–there were no kids, no real sacrifices. Maybe the woman gave up something nice to go live in Australia with her husband for a year, I don’t know, but it probably wouldn’t have been anything worth more than a few years of alimony, much less 35.
5) I am not against the concept of alimony, I am against the abuse of it, of which there are plenty. For a larger explanation of my views on this, click here. For a couple outrageous alimony stories, see Man Has to Pay Alimony for Ex-Wife’s Horses! and NJ Supreme Court Opens Door for Alimony for the Mistress
6) Give a salute to Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Matthew F. Cooper, whose ruling was worded very fairly, essentially saying that while we feel sorry for the woman’s lot in life, it wasn’t caused by her ex-husband and it’s unfair to ask him to bear responsibility for it. I also like his words “some empathy for the ex-husband as well…Instead of being able to close the book on a painful chapter from his youth, he has grown old forever tied to the ex-wife by the alimony…”