Wife’s Need Must Subtract Her Earning Capacity
Tennessee alimony divorce case summary after 23 years married.
Richard Alan Pearson v. Christen Creighton Pearson
The husband and wife in this Shelby County, Tennessee, case were married in 1995. The parties had two children, and the wife had three children from a prior marriage, but all of the children were adults when the husband filed for divorce in 2015. The husband had started working for his family business in 1985, and the company was eventually bought out. The husband traveled for the new employer, and in 2014, the husband had an affair with another woman in Texas.
During the marriage, the husband was the sole provider and earned an average salary and bonus of over $358,000 per year.
At the time of the trial, the wife worked part-time at Starbucks and earned $9 per hour. The trial court held that the wife could not be economically rehabilitated, but had an earning capacity of $28,000 per year. The trial court also found that the wife needed $9,700 per month to sustain her lifestyle, and the husband was ordered to pay this amount as alimony in futuro. The husband then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
His first issue on appeal involved a letter from his employer stating that his annual bonus might be lower than expected. The trial court rejected this letter as hearsay, and the appeals court agreed. The husband next argued that the award of alimony was improper. Here, the husband had a partial victory.
The appeals court first addressed the husband’s ability to pay. In particular, the husband argued that his being assigned to pay certain debts should have been taken into consideration. But after reviewing the evidence, the Court of Appeals concluded that the lower court had ruled correctly.
The husband next argued that at least a portion of the alimony should have been designated rehabilitative alimony, a short-term form of alimony. This issue hinged on whether the wife was capable of being rehabilitated, and the appeals agreed with the lower court’s finding that she was not.
The husband fared better, however, when it came to the amount of the alimony. The trial court had found that the wife had an earning capacity, which amounted to $2,333 per month. The appeals court held that this amount should have been subtracted from the wife’s monthly need. Therefore, it reduced the award of alimony from $9,700 per month to $7,336 per month.
For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment after modifying the alimony award.
No. W2018-01188-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Jun. 6, 2019).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Alimony Law in Tennessee.
