Military Wife Awarded Marital Property and Alimony 40+ Years
Tennessee case summary on alimony in divorce after over 30 years of marriage.
Teresa Arlene Simmons Perkins v. Dennis Andrew Perkins
Colonel’s Wife Awarded Alimony in Futuro after 30+ Years
The husband and wife in this Dyer County, Tennessee, case were married in 1987. Both parties had a college degree. At the time of their marriage, the husband was a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. When he retired in 2011, he was a Colonel.
Because of the husband’s military career, they moved many times. During the early years of their marriage, the wife held various minimum wage jobs, but she left the workforce in 1993 to be a stay-at-home parent.
The husband acknowledged that the wife met all expectations for a military wife, and after his retirement, he secured a position with a military contractor. At the time of their divorce, his base salary was $237,000, with substantial bonuses. He also received over $6000 per month in military pension, and $1500 per month in military disability as a result of a broken hip from a parachute jump.
The wife suffered various health problems, and also received inpatient treatment for alcohol abuse.
After trial, the wife was awarded half of the husband’s military retirement pay. She also received $921,000 in marital assets, which was about $50,000 more than that awarded to the husband. The wife was also awarded alimony in futuro of $4000 per month for 53 months, after which the amount was reduced to $750 per month. The case was then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
The appeals court first looked at the division of the marital estate. The wife argued that even though the dollar amount was set as more than the husband’s share, she really wound up with only 48% of the estate, which was skewed in the husband’s favor.
Her argument was based upon debts that were assigned to her, but the court had found that most of these debts were incurred in the post-separation period, and that she had used about $183,000 in marital assets during this period.
But the Court of Appeals held that the lower court had acted within its discretion. It noted, as had the lower court, that the assignment of debts to her was attributable to her incurring that debt after separation. It cited a 2016 case approving a similar percentage.
The appeals court then turned to the alimony award. The wife argued that $5000 per month would have been more appropriate in the circumstances. But the appeals court agreed with the lower court that her need was not as great as claimed. It noted that her desire to live in a particular place did not make it a need. And it also pointed out that while her earning capacity was less than the husband’s, it was not zero.
The husband, on the other hand, argued that no alimony should have been awarded, but the court concluded that this argument was without merit, and it awarded the wife partial attorney’s fees for the appeal regarding that issue.
In view of these foregoing considerations regarding Wife’s need and our review of the record as a whole, we discern no abuse of discretion on the part of the trial court in choosing to award Wife $4,000.00 per month in alimony instead of the $5,000.00 per month she had requested. We are in agreement with Wife, however, that the trial court erred in subjecting her alimony payments to an automatic reduction after fifty-three months. Wife has argued that there is no evidence to support such a decision, and to be frank, the trial court’s action appears to us to be entirely arbitrary.
For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed and remanded the case for calculation of attorney’s fees.
No. W2021-01246-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Mar. 10, 2023).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see The Tennessee Divorce Process: How Divorces Work Start to Finish.
