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Erin Alford Fuller v. Roger Darnell Fuller

Tenn. Ct. App.July 10, 2019No. E2018-01003-COA-R3-CV

Case Details

Judge(s)
Judge D. Michael Swiney, C.J.
Status
Published
Procedural Posture
appeal

Related Laws

No specific laws identified for this ruling.

Excerpt

This appeal concerns a redetermination of alimony on remand. Erin Alford Fuller ("Wife") sued Roger Darnell Fuller ("Husband") for divorce in the Chancery Court for Bradley County ("the Trial Court"). The case was tried, and Husband appealed the judgment. We determined that the Trial Court properly classified and valued Husband's trail income from his business in the property division but erred by then including, as part of Husband's income, the amount of trail income distributed as a marital asset. We thus vacated the Trial Court's determinations regarding child support and alimony. On remand, the Trial Court found that Husband inflated his business expenses. The Trial Court found that Husband earned approximately $200,000 per year and ordered him to pay Wife $1,500 per month as alimony in futuro. Husband appeals. We hold that the Trial Court, in keeping with our instructions, properly excluded the trail income distributed as a marital asset in making its fresh determination of Husband's income. We find no reversible error in the Trial Court's finding as to Husband's income, nor do we discern any abuse of discretion in the Trial Court's alimony decision. We affirm the judgment of the Trial Court and remand for an award to Wife of her reasonable attorney's fees and costs incurred on appeal.

What This Ruling Means

This case involved a divorced couple disputing how to calculate alimony payments when one spouse owned a business. Erin Fuller and Roger Fuller divorced, and during the proceedings, the trial court had to determine how much alimony Erin should receive from Roger, who earned income from his business through what's called "trail income" (ongoing payments from past work or sales). The main issue was whether Roger's business income was being counted twice - once when dividing up their marital property and again when calculating his monthly income for alimony purposes. The appeals court found that the trial court made an error by including the same trail income both in the property division and in Roger's regular income calculations. The appeals court sent the case back to the lower court to recalculate the alimony properly, without double-counting Roger's business income. **What this means for workers:** If you're going through a divorce and own a business or receive ongoing income from past work, it's important to ensure your income isn't counted twice in court proceedings. This could affect both property division and ongoing support payments. Business owners should carefully document how their income flows to avoid calculation errors that could impact their financial obligations.

This summary was generated to explain the ruling in plain English and is not legal advice.

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