New Jersey Man Appeals Financial Aspect Of Divorce Settlement

Divorce, while the best decision for some married couples, may not always be the kindest to a couple’s bank account. In some instances, both parties pay for their own legal fees at the end of the divorce. Other divorce cases stipulate that one party be held responsible for the other’s fees. One New Jersey man appears to be less than pleased that he might be on the hook for his ex’s legal fees.

Based upon the husband’s income prior to the divorce, permanent alimony to his ex-wife was set at $2,000 every week. That was in Jan. 2012 when he was also ordered to pay child support to the tune of $3,300 every year. By the close of that same year, he ended up serving eight weeks for failing to pay his support.

One judge claims that he remained purposely unemployed at times throughout the year in order to avoid making the support payments. The man denied these allegations and moved his case to the State Supreme Court. Although that court determined that his alimony payments should at least be reevaluated, they did uphold that he should have to pay his ex-wife’s legal fees.

He believes that the lower court’s judge was biased against him and may have set the alimony and legal fees that he must pay too high. The upholding of the legal fees is apparently because the New Jersey State Supreme Court believes that the ex-husband displayed less than desirable conduct during the divorce proceedings, thus dragging it out. However, he plans to appeal this decision, which can provide him the opportunity to have the divorce settlement amended in order to more accurately reflect his current financial situation.

Source: nj.com, “Ex-husband considers state Supreme Court appeal in alimony case“, Lillian Shupe, June 10, 2014