Divorce, Federal style
A new case from the Indiana Court of Appeals today (Glen Strohmier v. Vivian Strohmier) reflects on the dangers of modern divorce practice: Husband and wife get a divorce. Husband gets residence and is order to pay wife $30K for her share. Husband files bankruptcy, and strips out wife’s lien, and this discharges the obligation in bankruptcy.
In this case, the trial judge, seeing that wife got nothing and husband got everything, went back in and tried to make things fair. The Court of Appeals said no, the trial court cannot change the property division after the fact. Husband pursued his legal rights in bankruptcy court. So the wife losses out.
Now, she could have entered the bankruptcy case and fought the discharge of the debt to her (maybe she did, I do not know), but having to do this lays a heavy burden on a recently divorced person, who likely has few cash resources and outstanding legal fees.
Add to this the fact that practice in federal courts in general and bankruptcy courts, specifically, has grown increasingly more complicated, and expensive, and it becomes very likely that the trip to bankruptcy court by one spouse will result in an unfair result for the other after a divorce.
A note. I am traveling during the Christmas season, so I will wish all my readers a Merry Christmas at this point, although I might check in. One thing I will do before I leave is close off the comments and the trackbacks on the blog. I cannot leave this thing alone for more that a day without a ton of spam coming on.
