Husband Gets Alimony & More Property After Wife’s Adultery
Tennessee case summary on divorce following 26 year marriage and husband had cancer.
Ruby Diane Barron v. Bruce Joseph Barron
The husband and wife in this Hamilton County, Tennessee, case were married in Germany in 1991. They had one biological child and one adopted child. At the time of their 2017 divorce, the husband was 62 and the wife was 67. Because of health concerns, the husband could do only sedentary jobs.
At the time of the marriage, the husband was a tour guide, and the wife was a speech pathologist on a US military base. When the second child was adopted, the husband agreed to stay at home and provide care for the child, who had special needs. The wife served as the couple’s primary wage earner at this time.
The wife filed for divorce in 2017 on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. The husband counterclaimed, alleging adultery.
Trial was held in 2018 before Judge Pamela Fleenor, who found the husband to be the credible witness. She found that the wife had committed adultery, made disparaging remarks, and had not helped with the husband’s cancer treatment. The trial court also found that the wife had a greater ability to acquire assets and income. The wife made $88,000 per year, plus a $55,000 non-taxable housing allowance.
The trial court also noted that the husband would have to move back to the U.S., since he would not be able to find employment in Germany, and that he would no longer be the spouse of a government employee. The court divided the assets, awarding about $548,000 to the husband and $730,000 to the wife. It also ordered the wife to pay transitional alimony of $2,000 per month for one year, and to maintain health insurance until the husband turned 65. The stated reason for limiting alimony to two years was that the wife had already reached retirement age.
Dissatisfied with the outcome, the husband appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. He argued that both the property division and alimony awards were inadequate. The court first addressed the alimony issue.
Like the lower court, the Court of Appeals focused on the fact that the husband would need to move back to America and reestablish himself there. Because of the special needs son, the husband had not worked since 2005, and had also just gone through chemotherapy and surgery.
Based upon all of these hardships, the Court of Appeals held that the duration of the alimony was inadequate. It held that a longer duration would be necessary, and changed this to five years.
The husband also argued that, due to the circumstances of the case, it was error to award the wife more of the marital estate. The Court of Appeals was also sympathetic to this argument. It held that while the distribution need not be equal, in this case, the distribution was not equitable. The appeals court adjusted the award so that the wife’s share was 51.7%, and the husband’s was 48.3%.
The appeals court also awarded the husband his attorney’s fees on appeal, and remanded the case for the trial court to compute the amount of those fees.
No. E2018-02257-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Nov. 20, 2019).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Property Division in Tennessee Divorce.
