WHO WOULDN’T WANT ANOTHER $210,000?
In the context of a divorce case, the parties agreed that the husband would pay maintenance to his former spouse, JCK, in the total of amount of $30,000 per year, for eight years (unless either party died, or JCK got remarried). A year prior to the 8-year-mark, JCK made a request to the Orange County Supreme Court to extend the maintenance payments for an additional seven years. And when that motion was denied, an appeal followed.
While the Appellate Division, Second Department, noted that maintenance agreements are modifiable, even after their terms have expired, such motions will only be granted upon a showing of “extreme hardship”— a standard which JCK was unable to satisfy in this instance. Not only had she been gainfully employed for some 15 years, but she also earned additional income from a second job, and had a “relatively substantial amount of liquid assets.” Even though JCK alleged limitations due to an accident-related disability, the AD2 was unpersuaded by that argument, particularly since JCK had suffered from that injury some six years prior to the parties entering into the original maintenance arrangement.
Finding the motion to have been “properly denied,” the AD2 left the outcome undisturbed.
Would you have supported that?
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DECISION