Wife Award $3.5K/Mo for 60 Mos. Denied Permanent Alimony After Affair
Tennessee alimony divorce case summary after 27 years married.
Robert Harvey Santee v. Stacy Lynn Santee
The husband and wife in this Sevier County, Tennessee, case were married in 1990. The husband was a radiologist who earned about a half million dollars per year. The wife was a high school graduate and stay-at-home parent. They had five children, only one of whom was a minor at the time of their 2016 divorce trial. The wife’s only job during the marriage was selling Mary Kay products, and she lost money in the process.
The trial court granted the husband a divorce on the grounds of the wife’s inappropriate marital conduct. After dividing property and parenting issues, the trial court awarded the wife $3,500 per month in rehabilitative alimony for 60 months. In setting child support, the trial court imputed to the wife an income of $29,300 per year. The wife then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
Among the wife’s arguments was that she should have received alimony in futuro, rather than rehabilitative alimony. She also argued that it was error to impute income to her.
After addressing some property issues, the court turned to the issue of alimony. The wife argued that the award was insufficient, since she would never realistically be able to achieve a standard of living comparable to during the marriage.
The appeals court first pointed out that rehabilitative or transitional alimony is favored over an award of permanent alimony. The court noted that traditionally, the wife’s status would favor permanent alimony. However, there were factors to the contrary. First of all, the wife was in excellent health, while the husband had already made plans to retire. In fact, the trial court had noted that the wife began an affair about the time she learned that her husband was planning to retire.
The appeals court also noted that it was the wife who triggered the divorce, and this is a legitimate factor to consider. For this reason, the court found that the lower court had acted within its discretion, and affirmed the alimony.
The wife did get more sympathy when it came to the imputed income. Income was imputed because of the wife’s voluntary underemployment. But the appeals court noted that the alimony had been set based upon the assumption that she would go back to school. The appeals court noted that it would be illogical and unreasonable to expect her to earn this income while going to school to become self-sufficient. For that reason, the Court of Appeals reversed this portion of the ruling, and sent the case back for a re-computation of child support.
For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part. One of the judges, Charles D. Susano, Jr., dissented from the opinion on the issue of alimony, and would have awarded the same amount but as alimony in futuro.
No. E2016-02535-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Feb. 15, 2018).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Alimony Law in Tennessee.
