Divorce Lawyers Directory Blog

The New York Court of Appeals recently ruled that a woman's adultery and deception of her husband was not outrageous enough to affect the division of marital property. The woman let her husband believe that he was the father of a child she had with another man.

The husband learned of his wife's affair when the child was three years old. A DNA test confirmed that the child was in fact fathered by another man. At this point, the wife acknowledged that he was not the father, prompting the husband to file for divorce.

As part of the divorce action, the husband claimed he was entitled to recover damages for the money he spent supporting a child that he was fraudulently led to believe was his own. He also sought to recover fees for the collaborative law process used to settle their divorce, and he argued that his wife's actions should impact the division of their marital assets.

In a 6-1 ruling, the Court of Appeals found that the wife's actions did not reach "egregious" levels warranting a break with Equitable Distribution laws. They did, however, award the husband his share of the collaborative law fee.

The Court ruled that "it should be only a truly exceptional situation, due to outrageous or conscience-shocking conduct on the part of one spouse, that will require the court to consider whether to adjust the equitable distribution of the assets."

Previous instances where the courts have found circumstances egregious enough to warrant adjusting the division of property include:

• Levi v. Levi (2007), where a spouse attempted to bribe a judge
  
• Halvell v. Islam (2002), where one spouse viciously assaulted the other in front of their children
  

In this particular case, the Court determined that the wife's adultery did not fall outside the bounds of typical marital fault. As a result, they refused to adjust the division of property. The additional deception which led her husband to believe he was the father of someone else's child for three years did not appear to factor into the decision of whether her actions reached egregious levels.