Palimony for a girlfriend a guy didn’t even live with?
Posted by Mr. Thoughtful on May 12, 2008
You’re all no doubt familiar with the concept of alimony. For those readers outside the US and Western Europe, alimony consists of regular monthly payments to one’s ex-wife, usually for a period of years (while divorce courts can make women make alimony payments to their ex-husbands, it’s rare).
A clever divorce lawyer in California invented the concept of “palimony” when a woman came to him to try to get money from her long-time live-in boyfriend, the actor Lee Marvin. Mr. Marvin did not get married to his girlfriend, possibly because he was aware of the huge financial hit he would take in divorce court. After they broke up, the girlfriend, Michelle Triola, sued Marvin to obtain half of his assets.
Although the California Supreme Court did not give her half of Marvin’s assets, it decided that it could treat unmarried couples like married couples in certain circumstances, thus inventing the concept of palimony. And, as often happens, a terrible concept established in California finds its way to other states. The following article contains a discussion of a New Jersey lawyer who is trying to get the state Supreme Court to agree that palimony can be awarded even to an ex-girlfriend who never lived with the target:
Through the rise of palimony law, courts in New Jersey have laid out a bright line against its being awarded in cases where a couple did not live together. Now, however, the state’s high court is being urged to overturn that rule and open the door to claims for compensation by a broader class of romantic partners (Michael Booth, “N.J. High Court Hears Pitch for Palimony Sans Cohabitation”, New Jersey Law Journal, Jan. 23).
Hat tip: http://www.overlawyered.com/2008/02/palimony-without-cohabitation.html
The New Jersey courts have previously held that they would award palimony only if the unmarried man and woman lived together as a couple. I’d like to think the New Jersey Supreme Court would reject this absurd extension of a disgusting legal concept, but I’ll wait for the court’s decision. Ultimately, if state courts get packed with judges who fully buy into the redistributionist mindset embodied by the palimony concept, we will see even more of this nonsense.
For years people advised guys not to get married if they were worried about possibly paying alimony. That advice is no longer so good, at least in the states whose courts have enacted palimony. In those states guys were advised to maintain separate residences from their girlfriends. If palimony is extended, a guy might become a fat financial target when he has a long-term sexual relationship with a woman.
I love one of the arguments used by this woman’s lawyer. She said the girlfriend “was drawn into economic dependency.” That means this guy paid for her upkeep for years, so of course under the alimony/palimony concept he has to keep on paying for years to come.
And women wonder why guys won’t commit. Why would you commit when doing so is potentially so financially ruinous.
