Perry v. Perry

In Perry v. Perry, 2d Dist. No. 07-CA-11, 2008 Ohio 1315, appellant-wife appealed the trial court's decision denying her request for spousal support. She argued the trial court erred by failing to impute income to appellee-husband based upon his voluntary retirement. In her view, the trial court should have found appellee-husband voluntarily underemployed based upon his pre-retirement salary in order to award her support. The appellate court disagreed holding that in order to impute income to a retired party for purposes of requiring spousal support, a domestic court must first find the "retired party's decision to retire was based on an intent to defeat an award of spousal support." Id. at P25. The court continued: "If there is no evidence of a purpose to escape an obligation of spousal support and the decision to retire appears reasonable under the circumstances, then the trial court should not impute additional income to the retired party." Id.