Per Yahoo news:
Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines‘ estranged husband Adrian Pasdar is seeking more than $60,000 in monthly combined child and spousal support.
The former Heroes star, 53, asks for $16,427 in child support for their two sons — Jackson, 17, and Beckett, 14 — and $44,076 in spousal support per month, according to court documents obtained by PEOPLE. In total, Pasdar is requesting $60,503 in monthly support from Maines . . .
In Alabama, the vast majority of child support cases are handled by the child support guidelines.
The Child Support Guidelines basically ascertain the total combined income of the parents. This amount establishes a base child support obligation. Then the Guidelines incorporate work-related child care costs and health insurance premiums for the child. After these amounts are calculated, a formula establishes the monthly child support amount. (If one parent is unemployed or underemployed, an amount is imputed.)
Obviously, Natalie Maines makes more than $10,000.00.
I also like the request for “$350,000 to pay for his attorney’s fees.”
Notice: he is also requesting alimony. I wrote previously:
Alimony is separate and distinct from the equitable division of marital property. Alimony is an amount the court orders one person in a divorce to pay their ex-spouse in order to maintain their spouse in the standard of living they were accustomed to during the marriage.
In Alabama, there is no statutory for formula like other states. (See this multi-state calculator for a sample.) The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers suggests the following formula:
Take 30 percent of the payer’s gross income minus 20 percent of the payee’s gross income. That amount, when added to the gross income of the payee, should not exceed 40 percent of the combined gross incomes of the parties. The AAML suggests calculating duration of the award by multiplying the length of the marriage by a certain numerical factor.
A most helpful case in understanding periodic alimony is the case of Rieger v. Rieger, 147 So. 2d 421 (Ala. Civ. App. 2013). The Rieger Court began its analysis by noting that not every divorce spouse is entitled to periodic alimony, thus it is not mandatory. Instead, the decision of whether to award period alimony rests solely within the discretion of the court.
