Here is a case in New Jersey, where the husband is ordered to pay ~$1,000 per month in indefinite alimony (he's also paying about 1k in child support as well) and finds his ex wife has been cohabitating since 2005 with her boyfriend. She also had a baby for the guy. Since the guy is casually attached to the work force, the two of them had been living on the ex husbands alimony and child support checks.
So Mr. Deep pockets goes to court to ask for a modification----and is denied!!??! Stevie Wonder can see how this guy is being taken advantage of. So, he spends the big bucks (20k?) to appeal the decision.
The New Jersey court of appeals rules in his favor--kinda. They reversed and remanded the case back to the lower court for modification of the alimony amount. In other words, they want the lower court to impute an amount of money that the ex wife would be paying to contribute to the boyfriends support and deduct that from the amount Mr. Deep pockets is paying her.
Why not just end the alimony? Obviously she's living her life. Why is this guy compelled to support her in it?
The one thing I like about this case is the guy had the balls to appeal based on the violation of his rights under the 13th amendment to the Constitution.
Here is an excerpt:
"THE TRIAL COURT'S DECISION CONDEMNS DEFENDANT TO AN INDETERMINATE SENTENCE OF INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE IN VIOLATION OF THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION.
THE TRIAL COURT'S RELIANCE UPON [EX-WIFE'S] TESTIMONY WAS PREJUDICIAL ERROR. [EX-WIFE'S] TESTIMONY WAS PATENTLY FALSE AND SO MANIFESTLY UNSUPPORTED BY CREDIBLE EVIDENCES TO OFFEND THE INTERESTS OF JUSTICE.
THE COHABITATION ARRANGEMENT IN THIS CASE IS THE "FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENT OF A MARRIAGE" REQUIRING TERMINATION OF ALIMONY. TO PROVIDE OTHERWISE IS VIOLATIVE OF PUBLIC POLICY AND PREJUDICIAL ERROR.
(EX-WIFE'S] CONDUCT IN SECRETING HER RELATIONSHIP AND PREGNANCY, WHILE DEMANDING ENFORCEMENT OF THE ALIMONY ORDER, CONSTITUTES "EGREGIOUS AND OUTRAGEOUS"
CONDUCT. IT IS NEITHER FAIR, EQUITABLE NOR JUST TO CONTINUE ALIMONY GIVEN SUCH CONDUCT."
Of course there was no mention of action against the ex wife for hiding the pregnancy and the fact that the boyfriend was living with her (while defending her position to continue to receive alimony). She gets a pass.
These judges are morons.
Read about it here.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
You gotta read this....
OPINION: Mom-In-Chief Says “This Is How We Do It”
By Bill Stephney May 9, 2009 6:06 pm
Happy Mother’s Day, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama.
Yes, we know that she is the First Lady of our nation. We got that.
She is also a corporate lawyer, with degrees from Princeton and Harvard Law. Understood.
She has become an international fashion icon. Check that box, too.
But, from what we can gather through the somewhat limited lens of public observation, she is most importantly a good mother, a supportive spouse and a respectful daughter. Her success is apparently attributed to a pattern of practical life choices that she has made.
Michelle Obama is basically “Claire Huxtable” on anabolic steroids.
Her exemplary motherhood is a symbol of power. Digesting the “with great power, comes great responsibility” notion, it is in fact Michelle Obama, not her husband, who may serve as the one figure capable of affecting prevailing attitudes and institutional processes as they relate to African-American families (and by logic and extension, all of the nation’s families).
According to a recent Child Trends DataBank report, 69.5% of African-American children are born to an unmarried mother, in comparison to 47.9% of Hispanic children, 25.4% of White children, and 16.2% of Asian/Pacific Islander children. Most Black families with children don’t break up - they never form to begin with.
So, how do we turn around this “Maury Povich” culture of ours? A culture where too many young mothers are encouraged to believe that a child support check isn’t so much a replacement for a husband: It IS a husband to them. And too many young men, facing cultural attitudes that reduce effective male co-parenting as optional to children, are marginalized to the point where their family presence is of little to no consequence. Paging Michelle Obama, Esq.
While the recent record of presidents appointing first ladies to head ambitious initiatives hasn’t been very good (although it may lead to a future Senate career and a competitive death-match for the big job), looking for someone to turn around the environment that has Black children, mothers, fathers and extended family members are now separated from each other at a rate not seen since slavery - Mrs. Obama could be “The One.”
Black Women Who Shaped America
Michelle Obama currently commands a respect from Black folks that has been generally reserved for cherished figures such as Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz. Not only did she evidence unflagging support for her husband, notwithstanding the rants of a few cable news loudmouths, she was critical to his success during the election (do we truly believe Barack dominated Black women’s vote during the primary because of his smooth jumper from 15 feet out?). Their daughters, Malia and Sasha conduct themselves with a grace and youthful dignity. She and her brother Craig were raised well on Chicago’s South Side by her parents, Marian and Fraser Robinson. According to a 2008 New York Times piece, Michelle loved her father so much “that she would curl up in his lap even as an adult.”
And how fantastic is it to have Grandma Marian around the White House today, for extended family support?
2010 will be the 45th Anniversary of the U.S. Department of Labor’s report “Crisis of the Negro Family.” In short, the federal government’s report focused on the historical devastation that so wrecked African-American family, and community structure:
At the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family…It was by destroying the Negro family under slavery that white America broke the will of the Negro people. Although that will has reasserted itself in our time, it is a resurgence doomed to frustration unless the viability of the Negro family is restored.
President-Elect Obama should consider recruiting the First Lady-Elect to use her popularity by having her supervise a re-examination of the report’s findings, along with providing a current assessment of the critical issues that have so divided many families, such as the high out-of-wedlock birthrate, and radically fatherless African-American neighborhoods.
So on this Mother’s Day, I wish to thank my own mother, Estelle, for her lifetime dedication to being a wondrous parent and beautiful spirit; to my wife, Tanya, for her loving commitment to our children (as well as putting up with this writer…); and to Michelle Obama, for showing us that good motherhood is not about selfishly “having it all” — it is about a unflagging loyalty to family, to community, and to our nation, as a whole.
Bill Stephney head of Joseph Media, has previously run music companies Def Jam Recordings, SOUL Records and Stepsun Music. He has produced artists ranging from Public Enemy to Vanessa Williams and Paul Mooney. He has supervised music for films such as “Boomerang,” “Be Be’s Kids,” “CB4,” “Clockers” and “Shaft.” In 2006, he was elected to Minority Media & Telecommunications Hall of Fame. Currently, he is a featured essayist in the book “Be A Father To Your Child: Real Talk From Black Men On Family, Love and Fatherhood” (Soft Skull Press). He lives in New Jersey with his wife Tanya, and their three children. Stephney also serves as a member in that state’s division of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
By Bill Stephney May 9, 2009 6:06 pm
Happy Mother’s Day, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama.
Yes, we know that she is the First Lady of our nation. We got that.
She is also a corporate lawyer, with degrees from Princeton and Harvard Law. Understood.
She has become an international fashion icon. Check that box, too.
But, from what we can gather through the somewhat limited lens of public observation, she is most importantly a good mother, a supportive spouse and a respectful daughter. Her success is apparently attributed to a pattern of practical life choices that she has made.
Michelle Obama is basically “Claire Huxtable” on anabolic steroids.
Her exemplary motherhood is a symbol of power. Digesting the “with great power, comes great responsibility” notion, it is in fact Michelle Obama, not her husband, who may serve as the one figure capable of affecting prevailing attitudes and institutional processes as they relate to African-American families (and by logic and extension, all of the nation’s families).
According to a recent Child Trends DataBank report, 69.5% of African-American children are born to an unmarried mother, in comparison to 47.9% of Hispanic children, 25.4% of White children, and 16.2% of Asian/Pacific Islander children. Most Black families with children don’t break up - they never form to begin with.
So, how do we turn around this “Maury Povich” culture of ours? A culture where too many young mothers are encouraged to believe that a child support check isn’t so much a replacement for a husband: It IS a husband to them. And too many young men, facing cultural attitudes that reduce effective male co-parenting as optional to children, are marginalized to the point where their family presence is of little to no consequence. Paging Michelle Obama, Esq.
While the recent record of presidents appointing first ladies to head ambitious initiatives hasn’t been very good (although it may lead to a future Senate career and a competitive death-match for the big job), looking for someone to turn around the environment that has Black children, mothers, fathers and extended family members are now separated from each other at a rate not seen since slavery - Mrs. Obama could be “The One.”
Black Women Who Shaped America
Michelle Obama currently commands a respect from Black folks that has been generally reserved for cherished figures such as Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz. Not only did she evidence unflagging support for her husband, notwithstanding the rants of a few cable news loudmouths, she was critical to his success during the election (do we truly believe Barack dominated Black women’s vote during the primary because of his smooth jumper from 15 feet out?). Their daughters, Malia and Sasha conduct themselves with a grace and youthful dignity. She and her brother Craig were raised well on Chicago’s South Side by her parents, Marian and Fraser Robinson. According to a 2008 New York Times piece, Michelle loved her father so much “that she would curl up in his lap even as an adult.”
And how fantastic is it to have Grandma Marian around the White House today, for extended family support?
2010 will be the 45th Anniversary of the U.S. Department of Labor’s report “Crisis of the Negro Family.” In short, the federal government’s report focused on the historical devastation that so wrecked African-American family, and community structure:
At the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family…It was by destroying the Negro family under slavery that white America broke the will of the Negro people. Although that will has reasserted itself in our time, it is a resurgence doomed to frustration unless the viability of the Negro family is restored.
President-Elect Obama should consider recruiting the First Lady-Elect to use her popularity by having her supervise a re-examination of the report’s findings, along with providing a current assessment of the critical issues that have so divided many families, such as the high out-of-wedlock birthrate, and radically fatherless African-American neighborhoods.
So on this Mother’s Day, I wish to thank my own mother, Estelle, for her lifetime dedication to being a wondrous parent and beautiful spirit; to my wife, Tanya, for her loving commitment to our children (as well as putting up with this writer…); and to Michelle Obama, for showing us that good motherhood is not about selfishly “having it all” — it is about a unflagging loyalty to family, to community, and to our nation, as a whole.
Bill Stephney head of Joseph Media, has previously run music companies Def Jam Recordings, SOUL Records and Stepsun Music. He has produced artists ranging from Public Enemy to Vanessa Williams and Paul Mooney. He has supervised music for films such as “Boomerang,” “Be Be’s Kids,” “CB4,” “Clockers” and “Shaft.” In 2006, he was elected to Minority Media & Telecommunications Hall of Fame. Currently, he is a featured essayist in the book “Be A Father To Your Child: Real Talk From Black Men On Family, Love and Fatherhood” (Soft Skull Press). He lives in New Jersey with his wife Tanya, and their three children. Stephney also serves as a member in that state’s division of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Child Support Abuse
I know raising children is expensive, but does it really cost $10,000,000?
That's what the now suffering comedian Eddie Murphy has agreed to pay his baby-momma, Melanie Brown (Scary Spice). It's no secret that Eddie had a fling with the former Spice Girl after his gold digger wife stuck him for mega bucks after their divorce. And yes, when you make a baby, the baby needs pampers and day care.....But $10,000,000?!?!? WTF!
That's what the now suffering comedian Eddie Murphy has agreed to pay his baby-momma, Melanie Brown (Scary Spice). It's no secret that Eddie had a fling with the former Spice Girl after his gold digger wife stuck him for mega bucks after their divorce. And yes, when you make a baby, the baby needs pampers and day care.....But $10,000,000?!?!? WTF!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
..and another one.
This article is from The Star. It's some newspaper in Canada. I thought I had it bad. Read this...
by: Susan Pigg
Wayne Tippett has just two things of any real value left in his life: a 10-year-old car and a granite tombstone.
At 51, Tippett is broken, bankrupt and bunking in the guest room of his parents' Burlington home after a divorce settlement that's left him $75,000 in debt and racking up $1,000 more each month.
Today, he'll appear in court at a default hearing to try to explain why he can't afford to pay his ex-wife (the couple had no children) $3,300 a month, $16,000 in retroactive alimony and $42,000 of her court costs out of a complex case he himself still doesn't understand.
Even his ex-wife's lawyer calls the situation "a total tragedy." And while he says Tippett "is paying for his own foolishness and stubbornness," the settlement is, in many ways, a frightening example of bad timing, lack of adequate information, and a divorce court system that can be deadly unpredictable.
"You're absolutely insane if you want to go into the (divorce) court system," says London, Ont., family law lawyer Peter Eberlie, who represented Tippett's ex-wife Darlene Cormier, also 51. "Any court case is Russian roulette."
A detailed Star examination of court transcripts, as well as interviews with both parties' lawyers and some of Canada's leading divorce lawyers, shows why family law lawyers have been pressing the Ontario government to devote more court resources "up front" to pre-trial case and settlement conferences aimed at helping warring couples reach a fair settlement quickly and without the ruinous legal fees of a lengthy court battle.
"I think most family law lawyers now regard going to court as a failure, of both them and their clients. A failure to be reasonable," says Philip Epstein, one of Canada's most respected divorce lawyers.
Cormier refuses to discuss the case, other than to say she's "struggling for survival," and didn't expect to have to hire a lawyer and revisit an agreement on alimony payments the high school sweethearts had reached in 2003 – almost two years after their separation and 26 years together.
Every day that Tippett, a highly specialized Xerox technician, wakes up in the spare room he shares with three Cabbage Patch dolls and a teddy bear Mountie, he is falling further into a black hole. Since last April, he has been on disability leave because of medical problems he says have been brought on by the stress of the case, which means his $90,000 a year in salary and commissions is now significantly less. While Cormier is now getting just over $2,000 a month of his disability pay, technically Tippett is on the hook for $3,300, so each month his arrears are climbing.
"I've been given a life sentence and she's been given a cash for life ticket," says Tippett. "I actually asked my lawyer at one point, `Isn't there a human rights issue here? Don't I have the human right to have a life after divorce?'"
In a desperate act to protect what little he says he has left, Tippett admits that he disregarded a judge's order to make his ex-wife the beneficiary on an old insurance policy and used the $11,000 to pre-arrange his own funeral, buy a family headstone and have his name etched on it.
"Darlene won't bury me, and I don't want my family to have to pay for that. But I'm afraid the FRO (Family Responsibility Office) will seize the stone."
In fact, things might have turned out much differently had Tippett known that family law had undergone some dramatic changes in the time since his separation. Had anyone simply pointed him to familylawcentre.com where he could do the math himself, Tippett might have realized he was at serious risk the minute he stepped into court.
Cormier and Tippett met in Grade 8 math class and by 16 had fallen love. They both quit school in Grade 10, although Tippett would later get a college diploma at night, and married in 1981. She was the love of his life.
"I believe in marriage," he says, breaking down recalling how soothing it was to come home at night to hear the sound of Cormier's flute wafting out the window of their home.
"I took my wedding vows word for word – till death do you part. I thought I'd take my last breath looking into her eyes."
Cormier's lawyer maintains Tippett was controlling and content to have his wife dabble at home-based craft and music businesses that never earned much money. Tippett disagrees, saying he offered to help put her through school, pay for her to go overseas to study music, in hopes she could start earning a living.
None of that really matters now. Under Canada's "no fault" divorce system it's irrelevant who fell out of love first, or that Tippett voluntarily offered to move out and pay Cormier $2,145 a month to cover the mortgage and other expenses until they could work out a formal agreement. By November 2003, they had a deal for splitting assets and $2,300 a month in support, to be reviewed in three years.
Cormier would eventually buy a three-bedroom home kitty-corner to the matrimonial home and Tippett, with little left by the time debts were paid, rented rooms in hopes that the support would be reduced to, say, $1,400, in three years.
"We were 42 when we separated. I thought by 45 I would be starting all over again, that I'd be able to get a little condo, that she'd be on her feet," says Tippett. "I had no intention of leaving her high and dry. I knew I would always have to support her in some way."
Tippett kept writing cheques for $2,300, but the couple failed at every attempt to reach a deal. He says he was "shocked" last January to find himself in the middle of a two-day trial, with his ex-wife citing a litany of health issues – from fibromyalgia to the circulatory problem Reynauds syndrome – that, her doctor testified, made it impossible for her to work full-time. Even her 22-hour a week job at an antique market was proving to be a hardship, Cormier testified, acknowledging that she took a quarter to a half an Advil a few times a week to deal with chronic pain.
What Tippett didn't realize is that since the couple's 2003 agreement, a revolutionary set of "spousal support guidelines," along with significant new case law, was now firmly taking hold in divorce settlements.
The guidelines – one aimed at childless couples, the other for those with children – were meant to bring some consistency and predictability to divorcing spouses, especially women emerging from "traditional" long-term relationships who were unlikely to find decent-paying jobs after years at home.
In fact, the guidelines added up to a sort of "65 rule" – that if the partner's age and years in the relationship equalled 65 or more, the main breadwinner would be paying "permanent support" the rest of his or her life.
"The view now about marriage is that (both) parties are entitled, to the extent possible, to enjoy the same lifestyle after a long-term marriage," says Epstein, who sat on the committee that took five years to draft the guidelines. "We operate on a system that, if you create economic dependency (even if the wife isn't tied to the home caring for children), then you're going to have to redress it."
At the same time, judges were being much more aggressive in not just reviewing "time-limited" settlements but, in essence, going back to square one – looking at income, past support and setting new payments, as happened in Tippett's case.
In fact, during last January's court case, Cormier's lawyer accused Tippett of getting "one heck of a deal" compared to the new guidelines. Ontario Superior Court Justice Grant Campbell clearly agreed, not only boosting Tippett's alimony payments by $1,000 a month in his ruling last March, but making them retroactive to November 2006 and ordering him to pay Cormier's $42,000 court costs.
Facing massive legal bills of his own, Tippett filed for bankruptcy and it was only later, he says, he discovered he's still on the hook, under bankruptcy laws, for any payments related to the divorce case.
That's left Tippett in arrears that are growing monthly, on the default list of Ontario's controversial Family Responsibility Office and facing seizure of his driver's licence, his passport and, in time, a possible jail sentence.
Tippett says he knew "the whole world had flipped" the minute he left the courtroom last January.
"I was suicidal when I realized that I was going to lose. All I could see was black. I went home to my room and I cleaned things up. I was going to kill myself. No one knew what I was going through," says Tippett.
Except his mother, who could see it on his face.
"Sometimes I still worry when he's driving," she says now. "Wayne just spoiled Darlene to death, he loved her so much. Now it's ruined his life."
Even Tippett's Toronto lawyer, John Freeman, has been stunned at the turn of events.
"It's always easy to say, `This is what the law is,' but up until that time (the January alimony review) the law wasn't quite so clear. The spousal support guidelines did not exist when the original (2003) agreement was drawn up so, to a certain extent, Wayne is being pilloried retroactively.
"I can't say that Wayne's expectations (of a reduction in alimony) were unrealistic," says Freeman. "I thought he had a very good shot at reducing the amount. I didn't see an increase was going to be coming, to be very frank. Was it possible? Yes, but I didn't think that was a likely outcome."
by: Susan Pigg
Wayne Tippett has just two things of any real value left in his life: a 10-year-old car and a granite tombstone.
At 51, Tippett is broken, bankrupt and bunking in the guest room of his parents' Burlington home after a divorce settlement that's left him $75,000 in debt and racking up $1,000 more each month.
Today, he'll appear in court at a default hearing to try to explain why he can't afford to pay his ex-wife (the couple had no children) $3,300 a month, $16,000 in retroactive alimony and $42,000 of her court costs out of a complex case he himself still doesn't understand.
Even his ex-wife's lawyer calls the situation "a total tragedy." And while he says Tippett "is paying for his own foolishness and stubbornness," the settlement is, in many ways, a frightening example of bad timing, lack of adequate information, and a divorce court system that can be deadly unpredictable.
"You're absolutely insane if you want to go into the (divorce) court system," says London, Ont., family law lawyer Peter Eberlie, who represented Tippett's ex-wife Darlene Cormier, also 51. "Any court case is Russian roulette."
A detailed Star examination of court transcripts, as well as interviews with both parties' lawyers and some of Canada's leading divorce lawyers, shows why family law lawyers have been pressing the Ontario government to devote more court resources "up front" to pre-trial case and settlement conferences aimed at helping warring couples reach a fair settlement quickly and without the ruinous legal fees of a lengthy court battle.
"I think most family law lawyers now regard going to court as a failure, of both them and their clients. A failure to be reasonable," says Philip Epstein, one of Canada's most respected divorce lawyers.
Cormier refuses to discuss the case, other than to say she's "struggling for survival," and didn't expect to have to hire a lawyer and revisit an agreement on alimony payments the high school sweethearts had reached in 2003 – almost two years after their separation and 26 years together.
Every day that Tippett, a highly specialized Xerox technician, wakes up in the spare room he shares with three Cabbage Patch dolls and a teddy bear Mountie, he is falling further into a black hole. Since last April, he has been on disability leave because of medical problems he says have been brought on by the stress of the case, which means his $90,000 a year in salary and commissions is now significantly less. While Cormier is now getting just over $2,000 a month of his disability pay, technically Tippett is on the hook for $3,300, so each month his arrears are climbing.
"I've been given a life sentence and she's been given a cash for life ticket," says Tippett. "I actually asked my lawyer at one point, `Isn't there a human rights issue here? Don't I have the human right to have a life after divorce?'"
In a desperate act to protect what little he says he has left, Tippett admits that he disregarded a judge's order to make his ex-wife the beneficiary on an old insurance policy and used the $11,000 to pre-arrange his own funeral, buy a family headstone and have his name etched on it.
"Darlene won't bury me, and I don't want my family to have to pay for that. But I'm afraid the FRO (Family Responsibility Office) will seize the stone."
In fact, things might have turned out much differently had Tippett known that family law had undergone some dramatic changes in the time since his separation. Had anyone simply pointed him to familylawcentre.com where he could do the math himself, Tippett might have realized he was at serious risk the minute he stepped into court.
Cormier and Tippett met in Grade 8 math class and by 16 had fallen love. They both quit school in Grade 10, although Tippett would later get a college diploma at night, and married in 1981. She was the love of his life.
"I believe in marriage," he says, breaking down recalling how soothing it was to come home at night to hear the sound of Cormier's flute wafting out the window of their home.
"I took my wedding vows word for word – till death do you part. I thought I'd take my last breath looking into her eyes."
Cormier's lawyer maintains Tippett was controlling and content to have his wife dabble at home-based craft and music businesses that never earned much money. Tippett disagrees, saying he offered to help put her through school, pay for her to go overseas to study music, in hopes she could start earning a living.
None of that really matters now. Under Canada's "no fault" divorce system it's irrelevant who fell out of love first, or that Tippett voluntarily offered to move out and pay Cormier $2,145 a month to cover the mortgage and other expenses until they could work out a formal agreement. By November 2003, they had a deal for splitting assets and $2,300 a month in support, to be reviewed in three years.
Cormier would eventually buy a three-bedroom home kitty-corner to the matrimonial home and Tippett, with little left by the time debts were paid, rented rooms in hopes that the support would be reduced to, say, $1,400, in three years.
"We were 42 when we separated. I thought by 45 I would be starting all over again, that I'd be able to get a little condo, that she'd be on her feet," says Tippett. "I had no intention of leaving her high and dry. I knew I would always have to support her in some way."
Tippett kept writing cheques for $2,300, but the couple failed at every attempt to reach a deal. He says he was "shocked" last January to find himself in the middle of a two-day trial, with his ex-wife citing a litany of health issues – from fibromyalgia to the circulatory problem Reynauds syndrome – that, her doctor testified, made it impossible for her to work full-time. Even her 22-hour a week job at an antique market was proving to be a hardship, Cormier testified, acknowledging that she took a quarter to a half an Advil a few times a week to deal with chronic pain.
What Tippett didn't realize is that since the couple's 2003 agreement, a revolutionary set of "spousal support guidelines," along with significant new case law, was now firmly taking hold in divorce settlements.
The guidelines – one aimed at childless couples, the other for those with children – were meant to bring some consistency and predictability to divorcing spouses, especially women emerging from "traditional" long-term relationships who were unlikely to find decent-paying jobs after years at home.
In fact, the guidelines added up to a sort of "65 rule" – that if the partner's age and years in the relationship equalled 65 or more, the main breadwinner would be paying "permanent support" the rest of his or her life.
"The view now about marriage is that (both) parties are entitled, to the extent possible, to enjoy the same lifestyle after a long-term marriage," says Epstein, who sat on the committee that took five years to draft the guidelines. "We operate on a system that, if you create economic dependency (even if the wife isn't tied to the home caring for children), then you're going to have to redress it."
At the same time, judges were being much more aggressive in not just reviewing "time-limited" settlements but, in essence, going back to square one – looking at income, past support and setting new payments, as happened in Tippett's case.
In fact, during last January's court case, Cormier's lawyer accused Tippett of getting "one heck of a deal" compared to the new guidelines. Ontario Superior Court Justice Grant Campbell clearly agreed, not only boosting Tippett's alimony payments by $1,000 a month in his ruling last March, but making them retroactive to November 2006 and ordering him to pay Cormier's $42,000 court costs.
Facing massive legal bills of his own, Tippett filed for bankruptcy and it was only later, he says, he discovered he's still on the hook, under bankruptcy laws, for any payments related to the divorce case.
That's left Tippett in arrears that are growing monthly, on the default list of Ontario's controversial Family Responsibility Office and facing seizure of his driver's licence, his passport and, in time, a possible jail sentence.
Tippett says he knew "the whole world had flipped" the minute he left the courtroom last January.
"I was suicidal when I realized that I was going to lose. All I could see was black. I went home to my room and I cleaned things up. I was going to kill myself. No one knew what I was going through," says Tippett.
Except his mother, who could see it on his face.
"Sometimes I still worry when he's driving," she says now. "Wayne just spoiled Darlene to death, he loved her so much. Now it's ruined his life."
Even Tippett's Toronto lawyer, John Freeman, has been stunned at the turn of events.
"It's always easy to say, `This is what the law is,' but up until that time (the January alimony review) the law wasn't quite so clear. The spousal support guidelines did not exist when the original (2003) agreement was drawn up so, to a certain extent, Wayne is being pilloried retroactively.
"I can't say that Wayne's expectations (of a reduction in alimony) were unrealistic," says Freeman. "I thought he had a very good shot at reducing the amount. I didn't see an increase was going to be coming, to be very frank. Was it possible? Yes, but I didn't think that was a likely outcome."
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Why do we hear almost nothing about this?
It seems like every time I tell someone about the horror that awaits 60% of the men in this country (in family court), they don't believe me. They say, "If this were true, where are the protesters? People would be marching in the streets!!" I almost never know how to answer this. They're right. People should be protesting in the streets. For the answer see the article below.
One of my favorite authors, Mr. Stephen Baskerville recently published a new article entitled
"Divorced from Reality: “We’re from the Government, and We’re Here to End Your Marriage.”
Here is an excerpt:
One of my favorite authors, Mr. Stephen Baskerville recently published a new article entitled
"Divorced from Reality: “We’re from the Government, and We’re Here to End Your Marriage.”
Here is an excerpt:
Generated Hysteria
Why do we hear almost nothing about this? Aside from media that sympathize with the divorce revolution, the multi-billion-dollar divorce industry also commands a huge government-funded propaganda machine that has distorted our view of what is happening.
The growth of the divorce machinery during the 1970s and 1980s did not follow but preceded (in other words, it generated) a series of hysterias against parents—especially fathers—so hideous and inflammatory that no one, left or right, dared question them or defend those accused: child abuse and molestation, wife-beating, and nonpayment of “child support.” Each of these hysterias has been propagated largely by feminists, bar associations, and social work bureaucracies, whose federal funding is generously shared with state and local law-enforcement officials.
The parent on the receiving end of such accusations—even in the absence of any formal charge, evidence, or conviction—not only loses his children summarily and often permanently; he also finds himself abandoned by friends and family members, parishioners and pastors, co-workers and employers (and he may well lose his job)—all terrified to be associated with an accused “pedophile,” “batterer,” or “deadbeat dad.”
It is not clear that these nefarious figures are other than bogeymen created by divorce interests, well aware that not only the public generally but conservatives and family advocates in particular are a soft touch when it comes to anything concerning irresponsible behavior or sexual perversion.
Christians are especially vulnerable to credulity about such accusations, because they are disposed to see moral breakdown behind social ills. Moral breakdown certainly does lie behind the divorce epidemic (of which more shortly), but it is far deeper than anything addressed by cheap witch-hunts against government-designated malefactors.
It is also largely credulity and fear that leads Congress by overwhelming majorities to appropriate billions for anti-family programs in response to these hysterias. The massive federal funds devoted to domestic violence, child abuse, and child-support enforcement are little more than what Phyllis Schlafly calls “feminist pork,” taxpayer subsidies on family dissolution that also trample due process protections. Family law may technically be the purview of states, but it is driven by federal policies and funded by a Congress fearful of accusations that it is not doing enough against pedophiles, batterers, and deadbeats.
In fact, each of these figures is largely a hoax, a creation of feminist ideology disseminated at taxpayers’ expense and unchallenged by journalists, academics, civil libertarians, and family advocates who are either unaware of the reality or cowed into silence. Indeed, so diabolical are these hysterias that some family advocates simply accept them as additional evidence of the family crisis.
But while sensational examples can be found of anything, there is simply no evidence that the family and fatherhood crisis is caused primarily or even significantly by fathers abandoning their families, beating their wives, and molesting their children. Irrefutable evidence indicates that it is driven almost entirely by divorce courts forcibly separating parents from their children and using these false accusations as a rationalization.
It's a little long, but worth it. Click the link above for the entire article.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
HORRIFIC! - A Florida appeal court overturns alimony.
This guy finally gets out of paying alimony...somewhat..the case was remanded back to the trial court. Taking a case to appeal can cost upwards of 20K!! or more. Most people (like me) are out of money long before that.
Palm Beach County judge's hard-fought alimony victory may help other divorced people
By JANE MUSGRAVE
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
WEST PALM BEACH — Palm Beach County Circuit Judge David French on Wednesday won his decade-old battle over paying his ex-wife alimony - a victory that ultimately could help other divorced people who are supporting ex-spouses living with new loves.
Saying a three-year-old state law gives courts the ability to reduce alimony payments to those who are in "supportive relationships" with new people, the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that French shouldn't be forced to pay $3,400 a month to his ex-wife who has lived with another man for roughly 20 years.
"Here, the former wife has been living with another man with all the trappings of a marriage, without the formal legality of one, for longer than she was married to the former husband," Judge Melanie May wrote in an opinion joined by two other judges.
Neither Gayle French nor her attorneys could be reached for comment on whether they plan to appeal.
But, if the ruling stands, French will be able to go back to court and ask a judge to terminate, or at least reduce, the alimony that has cost him $40,800 annuallly since 1993. Because he is a Palm Beach County judge, the case will be heard by Broward County Circuit Judge Arthur Berkin.
French applauded the appeals court decision, saying it clarifies the impact of a law the legislature passed in 2005 as a way to promote families. Allowing people to continue to collect alimony as long as they didn't remarry encouraged them to live together instead of tying the knot, then-Gov. Jeb Bush said when he signed the legislation.
The measure was a year old when French asked Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jack Cook to free him from the alimony payments that were ordered as part of his 1988 divorce. He argued that the net worth of his ex-wife had soared from $97,000 to $900,000 and that she was, for all practical purposes, married to the man she began dating in 1987.
Cook agreed that Gayle French was in a "supportive relationship," but declined to reduce the alimony payments that had been clipped from $4,000 to $3,400 monthly in 1993.
Originally, the appeals court upheld Cook's opinion. But French and his attorney Amy Shields asked for a rehearing based, in part, on a dissenting opinion appellete Judge Gary Farmer wrote in a case that also turned on the interpretation of the new law.
"Why should the law require that a previously married person be supported by two separate members of the opposite sex: one from whom she is divorced and one with whom she is cohabiting," Farmer asked in his opinion in which he supported cutting off alimony to a woman who was living with a new man.
Shield said she wished the appeals court had adopted Farmer's view. But, she said, Wednesday's opinion goes a long way toward clarifying the law.
It is likely the Florida Supreme Court will eventually weigh in.
"It's a very hot issue in family law," Shield said. "It effects so many people across the board."
Palm Beach County judge's hard-fought alimony victory may help other divorced people
By JANE MUSGRAVE
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
WEST PALM BEACH — Palm Beach County Circuit Judge David French on Wednesday won his decade-old battle over paying his ex-wife alimony - a victory that ultimately could help other divorced people who are supporting ex-spouses living with new loves.
Saying a three-year-old state law gives courts the ability to reduce alimony payments to those who are in "supportive relationships" with new people, the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that French shouldn't be forced to pay $3,400 a month to his ex-wife who has lived with another man for roughly 20 years.
"Here, the former wife has been living with another man with all the trappings of a marriage, without the formal legality of one, for longer than she was married to the former husband," Judge Melanie May wrote in an opinion joined by two other judges.
Neither Gayle French nor her attorneys could be reached for comment on whether they plan to appeal.
But, if the ruling stands, French will be able to go back to court and ask a judge to terminate, or at least reduce, the alimony that has cost him $40,800 annuallly since 1993. Because he is a Palm Beach County judge, the case will be heard by Broward County Circuit Judge Arthur Berkin.
French applauded the appeals court decision, saying it clarifies the impact of a law the legislature passed in 2005 as a way to promote families. Allowing people to continue to collect alimony as long as they didn't remarry encouraged them to live together instead of tying the knot, then-Gov. Jeb Bush said when he signed the legislation.
The measure was a year old when French asked Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jack Cook to free him from the alimony payments that were ordered as part of his 1988 divorce. He argued that the net worth of his ex-wife had soared from $97,000 to $900,000 and that she was, for all practical purposes, married to the man she began dating in 1987.
Cook agreed that Gayle French was in a "supportive relationship," but declined to reduce the alimony payments that had been clipped from $4,000 to $3,400 monthly in 1993.
Originally, the appeals court upheld Cook's opinion. But French and his attorney Amy Shields asked for a rehearing based, in part, on a dissenting opinion appellete Judge Gary Farmer wrote in a case that also turned on the interpretation of the new law.
"Why should the law require that a previously married person be supported by two separate members of the opposite sex: one from whom she is divorced and one with whom she is cohabiting," Farmer asked in his opinion in which he supported cutting off alimony to a woman who was living with a new man.
Shield said she wished the appeals court had adopted Farmer's view. But, she said, Wednesday's opinion goes a long way toward clarifying the law.
It is likely the Florida Supreme Court will eventually weigh in.
"It's a very hot issue in family law," Shield said. "It effects so many people across the board."
Monday, December 1, 2008
Alec Baldwin...Men's Rights Activist?
Alec Baldwin asked the exec's at NBC to release him from his commitment to 30 Rock so he could devote the coming year to taking a stand against Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) and the injustices that face Men in our "just-us" system.
After a 9 year marriage to Kim Basinger (Vicki Vale from Batman), Alec and Kim split and spent 3 million dollars in attorney fee's for the divorce and child custody battle.
Alec uses tons of ink in his book "A Promise to Ourselves", where he laments the fractured relationship he has with his daughter and the crap that Kim took him through after their divorce.
Now is the time for Alec Baldwin (and Hulk Hogan, Paul McCartney, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Danny Bonaduce, Bill Murray, Tom Arnold, and a host of others) to speak on the huge settlements that they have to pay to get out of abusive, loveless marriages.
After a 9 year marriage to Kim Basinger (Vicki Vale from Batman), Alec and Kim split and spent 3 million dollars in attorney fee's for the divorce and child custody battle.
Alec uses tons of ink in his book "A Promise to Ourselves", where he laments the fractured relationship he has with his daughter and the crap that Kim took him through after their divorce.
Now is the time for Alec Baldwin (and Hulk Hogan, Paul McCartney, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Danny Bonaduce, Bill Murray, Tom Arnold, and a host of others) to speak on the huge settlements that they have to pay to get out of abusive, loveless marriages.
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