Husband Transfers $262K to Sister Must Pay Alimony

Tennessee case summary on divorce.

Rania Anwar Al Qaisi v. Diab Mahmoud Alia

The husband in this Davidson County, Tennessee, case was born and raised in Kuwait and had a degree in mechanical engineering.  After becoming a U.S. citizen, he attended a trade school to become a certified mechanic.  At the age of 42, he married in Jordan, when the wife was 27 years old.  She had worked as an interior designer in Jordan, but did not work in the United States.  They had a daughter in 2015.

The husband operated a business buying and selling cars, but the business proved to be unprofitable.  When he was offered a job as manager of a cellular phone company store, the couple moved to North Carolina.  The marriage kept deteriorating, and in 2018, the husband was transferred to Nashville.  After a domestic dispute, the wife went to the police and obtained an order of protection, and the husband was arrested.  Shortly thereafter, the wife filed for divorce.

While the case was pending, the wife filed a motion for contempt, alleging that the husband had transferred $262,000 to a foreign account.  The husband was found in contempt, but since the sister to whom he transferred the money refused to return it, there was no way for the husband to purge the contempt.

A trial was held, and in early 2020, the court entered its final decree.  The trial judge found that the husband was “prone to extreme exaggerations” and was not a credible witness.

After sorting out the testimony, the trial court named the wife as the primary residential parent and gave her 246 days of parenting time, with the husband having 119 days.

The wife was making about $2150 per month at a restaurant and driving for Uber.  The husband claimed to be making $300 per week, but the trial court found that the husband presented insufficient evidence of his earnings, many of which were cash.  The court found him to be voluntarily underemployed and pegged his income at over $37,000.  It therefore set his child support obligation at $488 per month.

The trial court took the $262,000 transfer into account when making the property settlement and alimony awards.  The alimony award was set at $1,070 per month, and the wife was awarded attorney fees.  The husband then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The appeals court first looked at the imputed income of the husband and agreed that the trial court had taken the proper approach.   It agreed with the lower court that the husband had not properly documented his earnings and that he was voluntarily underemployed.  In contrast, it looked at the wife’s earnings in a restaurant, as an Uber driver, and as a delivery driver for Amazon.

The husband argued that the alimony amount had been set too high, but once again, the appeals court agreed with the lower court.  The husband presented a chart of his expenses to the appeals court, but the court noted that these amounts weren’t properly in the trial record.  The appeals court called this a “belated attempt to piece together evidence that he should have proven at trial” and rejected it.  After reviewing the evidence, the court affirmed the alimony award.

Finally, the court looked at the parenting time and agreed that the lower court had acted appropriately.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed, and taxed the costs of appeal against the husband.

No. M2020-00390-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 28,  2021).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Property Division in Tennessee Divorce.