| Maury |
| (Carpal \'Tunnel) |
| 01/22/07 08:28 PM |
|
Re: alimony and reimbursement of tuition fees
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Making any assessment of spousal maintenance would require a review of many more facts than you provide. It has everything to do with the helath or the parties, their age, education, earning capacity, assets they will receive in a property division and more. I certainly hope you had a vocational evaluation performed. That would be absolutely necessary in the case that you describe.
Currently, spousal maintenance awards are granted pursuant to Minnesota Statutes § 518.552 if the spouse seeking maintenance demonstrates that he or she:
(1)lacks sufficient property, including marital property apportioned as part of the divorce to provide for the reasonable needs of the spouse considering the standard of living established during the marriage, especially, but not limited to, a period of training or education; or
(2)is unable to provide adequate self-support, after considering the standard of living established during the marriage and all relevant circumstance, through appropriate employment, or
(3)is the custodian of a child whose condition and circumstances make it appropriate that the custodian not be required to seek employment outside the home.
In determining the amount and duration of spousal maintenance, Minnesota statutes require that Courts address all relevant factors. The statute specifically identifies the following as relevant issues in determining spousal maintenance. You should be prepared to argue each of these in the way most favorable to you through the presentation of facts at trial:
(1)The financial resources of the spouse seeking maintenance;
(2)The amount of time that is necessary for the spouse seeking maintenance to acquire necessary skills or education to find appropriate employment;
(3)The age and physical and emotional health of the recipient spouse;
(4)The standard of living established during the marriage;
(5)The length of the marriage;
(6)The contribution and economic sacrifices of a homemaker including loss of seniority, retirement benefits and other employment opportunities foregone while working at home
(7)The financial resources available to the spouse from whom maintenance is sought.
No single factor is dispositive and the Courts must weigh all factors giving appropriate weight to each.
If the parties are unable to resolve disputes related to spousal maintenance, after a trial that considers the factors set out in the previous section, a court may:
*award spousal maintenance;
* reserve spousal maintenance (not award maintenance currently but leave the matter open for further review);
*deny spousal maintenance.
Awards of spousal maintenance may be "temporary" or "rehabilitative", designed to rehabilitate the spouse so that he/she may become self-supporting, or "permanent." In a situation where there is a marriage as short as yours, in most situations you would expect any spousal support to be very short term barring any extraordinary issues.
Temporary awards of spousal maintenance usually dictate factual presumptions on which the award is based. For example, maintenance may be awarded for a period of five (5) years at a certain level predicated on the recipient enrolling in and completed educational courses and finding employment in that period of time. Either party may bring the matter back before the Court if the recipient becomes self supporting at an earlier date or, through no fault of his/her own, fails to find employment within the designated period. Orders setting forth detailed educational and employment time lines on which the maintenance award is based tend to favor the person paying spousal maintenance since the recipient must demonstrate good cause why the time lines were not followed or achieved to extend the spousal maintenance beyond that period.
Your goal will be to seek a Waiver of Mainteance. Since you are already heading to trial, that may be too late.
In most cases, the interests of persons asked to pay spousal maintenance are better served by offering an immediate buy-out of spousal maintenance in return for a waiver that would preclude the court from modifying spousal maintenance in the future. This buy-out may occur as part of a property settlement that favors the party seeking maintenance.
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