An attorney who requested over $60,000 per month in alimony from her husband in their divorce case has been denied her request by the judge hearing the case. The woman, an alumna of the University of Pennsylvania, claims she cannot seek employment because of mental illness and feels her soon-to-be ex-husband should pay for the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed. The judge in the divorce case has other ideas on the amount of alimony the woman should receive.
After 25 years of marriage, the pending divorce allegedly left the woman extremely devastated and so affected mentally that she claimed that she would not be able to work. Her psychiatrist would have testified to that fact, but, because she had already testified to the woman’s stability and strength in another legal matter, the judge would not accept the doctor’s testimony in this case. Because of the woman’s prior employment history, the judge told her she she was capable of gaining employment.
The judge declared that she was not fooled by the woman’s mental illness declaration and has set the alimony at $12,000 monthly. The woman apparently made a mistake by going to a professional basketball game on the same night that she failed to appear in court. To be excused from court, she had requested that her doctor send a note to the judge saying she was very close to having a heart attack. She was also allegedly not truthful on expense statements that were handed over to the court. The terms of the divorce are such that she will still get several million in assets once it is finalized.
Divorce settlements can range from fairly straightforward to very complicated. In this case, a judge had to intervene when the husband’s legal advisors were not able to create a settlement acceptable to both parties because of the wife’s demands. As each state differs on the laws pertaining to divorce, those in Pennsylvania facing a division of property and other assets may benefit from seeking assistance from a professional experienced in divorces in the state.
Source: New York Post, “Judge doesn’t buy wife’s ‘mentally ill’ bid for more alimony“, Julia Marsh, Feb. 14, 2015
