Husband Dissipated Assets After Arranged Marriage
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Tennessee alimony divorce case summary after 11 years married.
Anupam Singla v. Anupam Garg Singla
The husband and wife in this Williamson County, Tennessee, case were married in 2006 and had one child. In 2015, the husband filed for divorce, and the case went to trial in 2017.
The spouses had met in India and the marriage was arranged. At the time of the marriage, the husband had been working in the United States for 11 months. The mother had been working as a teacher in India. She moved to the U.S. shortly after the marriage and lived with the husband in California.
Within the first year of the marriage, the wife obtained a work permit, and got her driver’s license in 2012. However, she did not get a job until 2014, since she stayed home with the child who was born in 2009.
In 2013, the husband filed for divorce in California but later dismissed the case. About this time, he made cash withdrawals of $14,000. He later testified that he thought the money was used for down payment on a vehicle.
In 2014, the parties moved to Kentucky, and then moved to Franklin, Tennessee, four months later. After an argument in 2015, the wife and child moved to Ohio, and the husband filed for divorce. The husband later testified that he gave the wife no money in July 2015, and gave her only $500 in August and September. When she returned from Ohio in October, he paid her $1,700 temporary support.
The husband had a 401(k) with a value of $93,000. In 2015, the husband borrowed over $43,000 to start a business, which both opened and closed that same year. He also failed to disclose one bank account, into which he had transferred $5,000. In 2011, he had also transferred $4,000 to his father, and there had been a transfer of $11,000 to an account in India.
At the time of trial, the husband had a salary of $130,000, and had an income of $137,000 in 2016.
After trial, the court granted the wife a divorce on the grounds of inappropriate marital conduct. The order called for the wife to receive both rehabilitative alimony and alimony in futuro.
The wife had claimed that the husband had dissipated over $128,000 by imprudent investments and transfers to his parents. The court largely agreed, finding that the husband had dissipated over $96,000.
The lower court also found that the husband had a far greater earning capacity and that the wife was the economically disadvantaged party. It granted the wife rehabilitative alimony in the amount of $1,500 per month for 84 months, to be followed by alimony in futuro of $1,000 per month. The husband appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
In addition to property issues, the husband argued that the alimony in futuro was improper, and that he had not committed dissipation. The appeals court first addressed the alimony issue, and noted that alimony in futuro is intended for cases where the disadvantaged spouse cannot be fully rehabilitated. It found that it was appropriate in this case for a number of reasons, including the wife’s limited English ability. For that reason, it affirmed the alimony award.
The appeals court next turned to the issue of dissipation. It noted that this depends on the facts of the particular case. Overall, the appeals court agreed with the lower court’s ruling. However, the lower court had found dissipation of $23,000 due to poor investments made by the husband. The appeals court held that these bad business decisions did not rise to the level of dissipation. Therefore, it reduced the lower court’s finding that $96,000 had been dissipated and reduced it by this amount.
After addressing the property distribution, the Court of Appeals modified the judgment and remanded the case.
No. M2017-01278-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Nov. 27, 2018).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Alimony Law in Tennessee.
