8 Yrs Married TN Wife Denied Alimony Failed to Account for Inherited $
Tennessee law case summary on property division and alimony in Tennessee divorce and family law from the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
Lori Ann Bates V Stephen Lee Bates – Tennessee Divorce Law – Married 8 years
In the divorce case, Stephen Bates, the husband, appealed the court’s classification and division of marital property. The wife, Lori Bates, appealed the ruling regarding the award of alimony.
The parties married on August 2, 2002. They had one child. The married couple lived in the home the husband owned prior to the marriage. A year into the marriage, the husband started his own business, Guardian Advisors LLC, and worked in a self-employed state. The wife earned a college degree during the marriage (with education starting prior to it) and began working as a kindergarten teacher in 2007. The husband purchased a second home in 2007 as well.
The couple filed for divorce in December of 2009 alleging inappropriate marital conduct and irreconcilable differences. Living in separate houses, the couple engaged in mediation and settled the concerns relating to the child. The divorce case went to trial in September of 2010. The divorce decree occurred in November of 2010. This ended their 8-year marriage.
The lower court awarded one home to each of the parties. The lower court determined the wife was economically disadvantaged and unable to maintain her quality of life had during the marriage. Therefore, it awarded her $500 per month in rehabilitative alimony for a period of 30 months so additional education and training was possible. The court also awarded attorney’s fees as alimony in solido to the wife.
In December of 2010, the husband filed a notice of appeal requesting he not have to pay the alimony since the wife, he claimed, had access to $200,000 in accounts she previously stated were in her name solely for her parents’ estate planning purposes. That court vacated the husband’s responsibility to pay the rehabilitative alimony and required reimbursement of the previously paid alimony.
The wife then appealed this decision to a higher court. As a part of her appeal, the wife alleged the court erred in allowing an affiliate real estate broker to testify on the value of property. She also believed she should be paid alimony.
The husband asserted the trial court erred in awarding his previously owned property as marital property. The final court stated that the trial court did err in that it was not marital property. However, it also noted that the error was harmless, even without the value of the residence included in the marital estate. The division or property, it stated, was equitable.
With the concern of alimony, the court considered the additional accounts. Specifically, the husband claimed the wife had borrowed $100,000 from the accounts she previously stated she would “never use.” She did not have any loan documentation and was not to pay interest on the borrowed funds. As a result, the final court ruled that the husband does not need to pay rehabilitative alimony to the wife since the wife misrepresented her intentions regarding these accounts.
No. M2010-02590-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. June 26, 2012).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
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