Wife Entitled to Alimony After 20 Year Marriage to Physician

Tennessee alimony divorce case summary after 20 years married.

Wife entitled to alimony after 20 year marriage.

Catherine Wolte Pallekonda v. Vinay Anand Raj Pallekonda

The parties in this Madison County, Tennessee, case were in their 50s and had been married for almost twenty years at the time of their divorce.  The wife had worked as a registered nurse early in the marriage, but did not do so since the mid-2000s based upon a mutual decision.  The wife cared for her ill father and their children.  They were the parents of two children, one of whom had special needs.

The husband was a physician whose highest salary was over $700,000 in 2020.  That same year, they relocated to Tennessee.  After about a year, he was asked to leave his employment, and he accepted a position in Florida, which paid $320,000 per year.

While the case was pending, the husband was to pay the wife temporary spousal support of #13,000.  The trial court pegged his earning capacity at $36,000 per month and ordered him to pay transitional alimony of $9000 per month for 72 months, followed by $7000 per month alimony in futuro.  The husband then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The husband first argued that the lower court had erred in setting his earning capacity, since his salary worked out to only about $27,000 per year.  Essentially, the lower court had made a finding of voluntary underemployment.

While the husband testified that he didn’t want to work as he had before, the appeals court noted that he had a long track record of higher earnings.  Upon reviewing all of the evidence, the appeals court ruled that the evidence supported the lower court’s findings.

The husband next argued that while an award of rehabilitative alimony might have been proper, the evidence did not support an award of alimony in futuro.

The court cited the statutory factors governing alimony, and cited the husband’s argument that the wife was able to rehabilitate herself.

But the appeals court found that the record supported the award.  It noted that the wife would be unable, even after rehabilitation, to achieve a standard of living comparable to that of the husband.  Accordingly, it affirmed the alimony award.  It remanded the case for any necessary proceedings.

No. W2023-00574-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Mar. 7, 2024).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Alimony Law in Tennessee, and our video, How is alimony decided in Tennessee?