Alimony and Child Support Must Be Recalculated After Errors

Tennessee case summary on alimony and child support in divorce.

Thomas Robert Blakemore v. Lynn Ann Blakemore

The husband and wife in this Henry County, Tennessee, case were married in 2002 and had one child.  They separated after the wife was arrested in 2015 for threatening the husband and child with a butcher knife.  The husband dropped charges and they attempted to reconcile, but the husband filed for divorce in 2016.  He asked to be named the primary residential parent of the child.

A hearing was held in 2018, at which the husband recounted many threatening comments directed at him and the child.  The wife tried to explain them away, and described the relationship as having good years and bad years.

At the time of hearing, the wife was 52 and had degrees in social work.  From 1996 through 2009, she was a nursing home administrator earning as much as $100,000 per year.  She worked some after 2009, but only part time and inconsistently.  She did not work after 2017 due to medical ailments including diabetes.  Her only income was public assistance, and she listed expenses of over $5000 per month, including future medical costs.

The husband was 61 and was a retired firefighter and EMT.  His pension paid over $5000 per month, but listed expenses of over $7000 per month.

The court granted the husband a divorce, divided the property, and named the husband residential parent.  She was denied alimony due to the husband’s inability to pay.  She was awarded child support for her residential time.  The wife then appealed the case to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The appeals court first addressed issues concerning division of the marital property.  It noted that the wife had received assets of about $34,000, while the husband received assets of over $88,000.  This ruling had been made after allocation of the marital debts, and the wife alleged that the amounts of those debts was wrongly decided.   The appeals court did agree with the wife that there were errors.  In particular, the lower court had failed to notice that there were two different accounts with one creditor.  The lower court had assumed that the parties were discussing the same account and that each had assigned a different value.

The appeals court then turned to the calculation of child support.  The appeals court did agree that there was an error in the amount for the husband’s income.    It also found that the husband’s pension income hadn’t been properly computed.  But the court agreed that the wife had failed to introduce sufficient evidence to show that she could not be employed.  For these reasons, it vacated the award of alimony and remanded the case for recalculation.  And because of the use of inaccurate information, the court also remanded the case for reconsideration of whether transitional alimony would be appropriate.

After addressing attorney’s fees, the appeals court vacated the decision in part and remanded the case.  Costs of appeal were taxed equally to both parties.

No. W2018-01391-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. June 25,  2020).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see The Tennessee Divorce Process: How Divorces Work Start to Finish.