Bi-polar Wife Gets $2,000 / Mo. Alimony After 27 Years Married
Tennessee alimony divorce case summary after 27 years married.
Robin Ann Longstreth v. Phillip Andrew Longstreth
The husband and wife in this Tennessee case were married for 27 years and had two children, both of whom were adults at the time of their 2013 divorce. The husband had an MBA and had passed the CPA exam, with an annual salary of $125,000. The wife had about a year of college. In 1991, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had been hospitalized twice. Since 2006, she had worked various jobs with an income ranging from $12,000 to $44,000.
In 2014, the trial court granted the wife a divorce on the grounds of the husband’s inappropriate marital conduct and divided the parties’ property.
The husband was ordered to pay alimony in futuro in the amount of $2,000 per month, with a $550 credit for a mortgage payment he was ordered to pay. Alimony was to continue for life or the wife’s remarriage. It would also terminate when the wife reached age 67, or if the husband’s earning capacity dipped below $50,000 per year.
The trial court also added a provision for automatic modification of the alimony, based upon different income thresholds. In addition to the provision for the husband’s income going below $50,000, there was another provision for the alimony to be reduced if the wife’s income was over $24,000. In that event, the alimony would decrease by half of the amount that her income exceeded $24,000. Both parties appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. The husband argued that the trial court had erred in setting alimony. Both parties argued that the automatic adjustment was not authorized.
The Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court that the wife was the economically disadvantaged spouse. She had been married at the age of 19, had only a year of college, and her doctors testified that she was unable to maintain fulltime employment because of her bipolar disorder.
The appeals court found no evidence that the amount of $2,000 was inappropriate in this case, and therefore affirmed the award of alimony.
The appeals court agreed with the parties, however, that the automatic modification provisions were not proper. The Tennessee statutes call for modifications to alimony to occur only in certain circumstances, and held that it was improper for the court to prospectively account for changed circumstances.
After reviewing other aspects of the property division, the Court of Appeals went on to affirm the trial court’s order, but with some modifications. Those modifications included removing the automatic adjustment provision.
No. M2014-02474-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Apr. 20, 2016).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Alimony Law in Tennessee.
