McCarney, The First Department and other things

“The old theory was marry an older man, because they're more mature. But the new theory is: Men don't mature. Marry a younger one." Rita Rudner

“The trouble with my wife is that she is a whore in the kitchen and a cook in bed”
Geoffrey Gorer (1905-1985), Anthropologist

“A lot of guys think the larger a woman's breasts are, the less intelligent she is. I think the larger a woman's breasts are, the less intelligent the men become.” Anita Wise


And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.[i] Really. After all, where can you claim that one cannot possibly make ends meet for child support and maintenance on a tad over $7,485,000 per year? Why jolly old London of course. Next time you are filling out that silly Statement of Net Worth form so favored by the wonks at OCA, think of dear Heather Mills, the Gold Standard of needs and wants. After all, I often say that no one costs more to feed than the clients of one of our favorite downtown Albany law firms, but even they are pikers compared to the modest and demure Ms. Mills. Just how do you get there? Let’s start with the niggardly sum of $69,000 per year for helicopters for vacations. Or how about the seven full time housekeepers ($128,000) or my personal favorite: just shy of a quarter mil per annum for clothes. Like I say, it’s a wonderful world. Unfortunately, Mr. Justice Bennett wasn’t buying it and awarded her only a fraction of that to keep body and soul together, saying, “If, as she has done, a litigant flagrantly overeggs the pudding and thus deprives the court of any sensible assistance, then he or she is likely to find that the court takes a robust view and drastically prunes the proposed budget." Man would I like to see the Third Department write something like that some day. Overegg the pudding?
Into this surrealism wandered Allan Chapin the other day, and the First Department gave us a doozie just in time for Easter.[ii] Do you know him? He’s a former partner in Sullivan and Cromwell, one of the largest law firms in the world, founded in the 19th Century. Of course, he gave up that lucrative gig when his marriage Numero Duo went sour. Who wouldn’t? It seems Mr. Chapin and Ms. Janet Johnson married in the Episcopal Church of Heavenly Rest[iii] in NYC and nine months and one hour later had a bouncing baby boy. Within three years Janet quit her job as a lawyer for the Walt Disney Company (of course) and Allan kept earning about $2.1 million yearly at S&C and after that the investment bankers Lazard Freres & Company. He also had a tidy income from being on a bunch of corporate boards and was an adviser to my beloved Toronto Blue Jays. So, what does such a Captain of Industry do in his spare time? What they all do: renovate a country home in Claverack, New York, a dippy little town in Columbia County best known as the home of Ollie North.[iv] Mr. Chapin owned the farm before he married Ms. Johnson, but sank $1.9 million into the property to increase its value a little less than $1.6 million. What a financial genius. In any event the trial court gave her half the increase which was reduced by the First Department to 25% because of passive appreciation I guess. They do not really explain that rationale, but she did after all order pizza and coffee for the renovation workers. Here’s where things got really squirrelly. It seems that Allan owed his first wife some money pursuant to his divorce judgment, namely $584,000 in maintenance and $690,000 in equitable distribution for a nice total of $1,274,000. Being the good spouse, he paid it all during the marriage to the former Mrs. Chapin. So when it came time for Equitable Distribution, the current Mrs. Chapin aka Janet Johnson made the rather silly argument: “Wait a minute. If he hadn’t paid the $1.2 million to the first Mrs. Chapin, then we would have had an extra $1.2 million in our marital estate. Yeah, I knew about this obligation when I married him, but so what? Give it back to me, or at least half. Please. Pretty please.” Well, Dammit Janet, there’s a fire in their heart and you’ve fanned it. So they reduced Allan’s separate property credits by half or over $600,000 and slid that over to Janet’s half of the equation. Wow!
Remember last week when I asked the First Department to lay off my beloved Third Department when writing a decision that not so respectfully disagreed with their Northerly brethren? Well, maybe they took the article to heart but the venom spilled over their black robes into this decision in the form of the majority opinion and the dissent by Mr. Justice James McGuire, a Pataki gift from Queens to the First Department in 2006. He was joined by Mr. Justice David Friedman, no relation to my learned brother of the same name. Putting aside the snide remarks the majority foisted on the dissenters, the heavily footnoted dissent sent shivers through my spine in its excoriation of the majority, however wrong they may be. Here is a sample: “I respectfully disagree with virtually everything the majority has to say… The majority's assertion that Ms. Costello ‘gave testimony which supported [the wife's] position’ is breathtakingly wrong… Not surprisingly, the majority offers nothing by way of an attempt to respond to any of the points I make regarding its erroneous reliance on the CFO's testimony… The majority does not and cannot dispute this critical fact. Indeed, the majority ignores it.” Boy, I would have loved to be in the room when this baby was argued by the Court. Given the two judge dissent, one can only wonder what magic the Court of Appeals will work with these facts. Did I mention that Allan had to pay $800,000 of Janet’s legal fees? Just slipped my mind I guess. Not bad for a 14 day trial. I really must be doing something wrong.
In any event, aside from the juicy stuff about child support and maintenance, the really novel idea here is to get a credit for half of a spouse’s premarital debt paid during the marriage. How ‘bout them student loans? Pay them during the marriage, and get them back at the end. Dammit, Janet, it really is a wonderful world.
I know the Office of Confused Adults has little money for judicial pay raises and the like, but who came up with the idea to put little numbered labels on everything in the courthouse? Have you noticed that every chair, flag stand, telephone and bauble has a new label with the words “Office of Court Administration, ___ Judicial District, No.___” pasted on the personalty. I wonder if the robes and shoes of the judges have numbered labels. Isn’t there something better these guys can do?
By the way, is the Third Department becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the Third Judicial District? We now have four new judges and three are from the Third District giving us 2/3 of the App Div and further depleting our trial bench with the loss of Justice Stein. Can’t the other two districts chip in a judge or two to balance things out?
Happy Conch Republic Independence Day, the only place where this all makes sense.

[i] Of course, with a tip of the hat to Bob Thiele aka George Douglas and George David Weiss. Did you know Clear Channel made the song persona non grata just after 9/11?
[ii] Johnson v. Chapman, __ A.D.3rd __ (1st Dept., March 13, 2008)
[iii] For those of you who accuse me of making this stuff up, see The New York Times, January 13, 1991. I’ll lend you my copy.
[iv] The most famous graduate of Ockawamick High School.