TN Wife Married 3 Years Gets Transitional Alimony $1000 / Mo for 1 Yr.
Alimony Tennessee law case summary following 3 years of marriage. Tennessee divorce and family law from the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
Amy Goolsby James v Chadwick Ryan James
In the divorce of Amy James and Chadwick James, the wife asserted the trial court erred in its award of alimony. The two were married in April of 2006. At the time of the marriage, the husband was 34 years old and the wife was 35 years old. Both were college graduates and working professionals throughout the marriage. This was a second marriage for both parties. The couple had one child born in July of 2007. The wife left her pharmaceutical sales rep job in December of 2007. In June of 2008, the wife filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences and inappropriate marital conduct.
The court heard the case in May and June of 2009. The divorce ending the marriage occurred in July of 2009, creating a short, three-year marriage. The court awarded partial custody of the child and the marital home, which she owned prior to the marriage to the wife. She was to repay $15,000 to the husband for the contributions made to the marital home. The trial court did not award alimony.
In the aspect of the non-award of alimony, the trial court used a variety of information to make this decision. The wife testified that she was fully employed at a rate of $12.00 per hour. The husband’s gross monthly income was $7,000. He earned $100,000 the prior year. The trial court made no finding that the wife was voluntary underemployed. However, the trial court did not take into consideration the turn in the economy and healthcare industry but rather assumed the wife’s employment possibilities remained high, thus leading to a high income. The husband asserts his income has fallen by as much as 10 percent in the same period. He worked as a nurse practitioner at the time of the marriage, thus indicating that positions in the healthcare industry were affected during the recent economic conditions.
Based on the total circumstances of the case in which the property was equalized and divided equally, and the testimony that the wife was employed full-time, the appellate court modified the trial court’s ruling and awarded the wife transitional alimony in the amount of $1,000 per month for 12 months. In the matter of whether the husband should pay for the wife’s attorney’s fees, the appeals court ruled in favor of the husband. It noted that the trial court had the discretion to award this as alimony in solido and did not.
No. M2009-02332-COA-R3-CV, October 25, 2010.
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
Memphis divorce lawyer, Miles Mason, Sr., JD, CPA practices family law exclusively and is founder of the Miles Mason Family Law Group, PLC, which handles Tennessee family law matters including divorce, child support, alimony, and alimony modification.
