Brendan Fraser

[TheRuthlessOne]

no, no he is not

Boris might be the best mummy but he isn't in the best mummy movie

 

[Lovestorm]

That movie he was in where he is a caveman in modern America was good.

 

[Michaelangelo]

Need to put more respek on the B Fraze

 

[Fedorisbest]

MY mother met him in the 90s. she said he was very shy but nice

 

[minute bull]

Was there anything else you wanted to know?

Yes. Would you please hold me? I'm scared.

Thank you for that great post. The two main take-aways I got:

1. Similar to the grass roots philosophy of health: either you pay now or you pay later -- it behooves everyone to be proactive in their due diligence at time of divorce. I think it just really sucks that if you don't lawyer up, you may lose a lot of money. And depending on the lawyer, you may lose a lot of money. That feels like practicing for a basketball game your entire life, and then god says the night before, "I'm making you a midget and this is going to be midget basketball." So no matter how hard you train, and if you win -- outside the court you're just this midget holding a basketball.

2. Take a deep look at what the future might hold, and plan for contingencies, changes of circumstance, and don't simply roll over. Which can't be easy if there is a high emotional component involved, but yeah.

Oh, yeah. Question, and I think you touched upon it with Foley and his arrears. What's the process when one party doesn't meet their end of the settlement? I hear about wage garnishments, but I've always been curious if there are other recourses? As you say, jailtime is counter to the notion "he needs to make money in order to pay." How do you leverage payment out of a person who abjectly refuses to follow the terms of the settlement?

Ever since the days of PEOPLE'S COURT, I've wondered what happened after the show. Like are there enforcers from the show that drive out to your house and make sure you pay up? And why weren't those guys ever featured? I mean, there's your show right there!

 

[I Am Legion]

Murder seems cheaper imo.

 

[Krixes]

I used to love that movie School Ties with him and Matt Damon.

 

[Morning Star]

He owes $900k a year in alimony. $22k a day would be $8million a year. Where did they get that number?

Lmao. I was pretty baked last night it being Friday and all so I didn't do the math. I'm guessing it's just a gross exaggeration done in jest rather than a mathematical error.

I thought the side banner was pretty funny too.

 

[Anung Un Rama]

I'll try address each guy one at a time. Bear in mind I do not have all the facts, but I've done a bit of digging, and tried to deduce what's probably going on. Also keep in mind I don't know California law.

1) Brendan Fraser - I'm speculating a bit for his situation, but I suspect his problem is that alimony was negotiated and not litigated, and that his separation agreement doesn't provide much flexibility for adjusting the payments. Typically if alimony is litigated, the court will look at the evidence of the parties' financial positions and determine if alimony should be paid, and if so, then how much. If circumstances change after the order is granted, the parties can usually apply to vary the support order to adjust the amount payable, but it depends on the legislation in place in the jurisdiction.

However, not everyone litigates alimony, most people negotiate a separation agreement. The thing is those are binding contracts, and the courts are loathe to change what the parties agreed to. Where this becomes a problem is when the parties don't set out terms for when or how alimony can be adjusted. If a separation agreement just says that the husband will pay the wife $2000 a month in alimony for five years then that is what he'll have to do, no matter what happens to his or her financial circumstances. Therefore, a "good" separation agreement will go further and say whether the occurrence of certain events will warrant the renegotiation of alimony. For example, my separation agreements that I draft for clients will usually say that the parties can renegotiate alimony if the husband's salary goes down by $10,000 a year, if the wife's goes up by $10,000 a year, or if the wife marries someone else or lives with a new boyfriend for more than 3 consecutive years.

From what I've read, that's the source of Fraser's problem: his agreement was too restrictive on the conditions for when alimony could be adjusted. After looking around I found a story that said his agreement said that he couldn't adjust alimony until he started earning less than $3 million per year. At some point he tried taking his wife to court to reduce the alimony and failed because he wasn't able to provide evidence that he was earning less than that. That was a few years ago, so I imagine he must be free from that $900k per year bill, but I'm not sure.

2) Dave Foley's situation is easier for me to comment on because it's in Canada. Even though I practice law in Alberta, not Ontario, the Divorce Act is federal legislation, in force across Canada, and child support is dictated by the Federal Child Support Guidelines.

Foley's problem appears to also be related to a separation agreement, and I say that because the article I read vaguely referred to one, but also because the calculation for the breakdown of his $17k per month in child support in one article said the child support was $10k per month that was "agreed to" when they initially split, but that that number has increased to $12k because of cost of living increases. That doesn't make sense to me because child support doesn't work like that - "cost of living" for the recipient of child support is completely irrelevant under the Guidelines, so I suspect it must have been part of their separation agreement. The remaining $5k per month he owes is because he fell into arrears on the support he owes. Once a payor misses enough payments the recipient can go to court to get an order for arrears to stack on top of the monthly amount regularly owing. So Foley owes $12k per month for ongoing support plus $5k per month for arrears (which arrears are apparently a staggering $500,000+ !!).

Foley has apparently tried to apply to court to reduce the child support and failed, because he hasn't provided reliable or convincing disclosure of his financial circumstances. Without sufficient evidence the court will decline to change support. So really Foley needs to get a good accountant to put together all his financial information and a good lawyer, and then he could have the support lowered and maybe have some of those arrears wiped out too.

One thing that shocked me about Foley's situation is that he can apparently be jailed for the child support arrears. I did not know Ontario allowed that. We certainly don't have anything like that in Alberta. While child support is a federally regulated area of law, the enforcement of child support orders is provincially regulated. In Alberta, if you fall behind on child support they can suspend your drivers license, confiscate your passport, register a writ on title to your home or your car, garnish your wages or garnish your bank account, but no jail. That's dumb. How are you supposed to earn money to pay child support from a jail cell?

3) Peter David I think you asked two questions, one about the IRS and the other about the cost of a divorce. Regarding the IRS, if he spent all his money on legal fees he can't use that as an excuse to get out of income tax owing from that year, because legal expenses are not tax deductible for individuals, only corporations (because they're consider a business expense as "professional fees" - lawyers, accountants etc.) so the IRS is only going to care about the income he earned that year, not what happened to it.

Your second question, about the cost of a divorce. Well, the short answer is "it depends" (which is the answer to all legal questions). There's a number of factors. What is the price for the lawyers (ie their billable rate)? Are there children? Is alimony going to be in play or are the spouses reasonably financially independent? How much matrimonial property is there? And by far the absolute most important factor is "can the divorcing spouses get along?" The more you fight, the more you pay.

Was there anything else you wanted to know?

j/k that was an awesome explanation, thanks for taking the time. Sounds like these dudes had some bad counsel.

 

[minute bull]

SHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

 

[Law Talkin’ Guy]

Yes. Would you please hold me? I'm scared.

Thank you for that great post. The two main take-aways I got:

1. Similar to the grass roots philosophy of health: either you pay now or you pay later -- it behooves everyone to be proactive in their due diligence at time of divorce. I think it just really sucks that if you don't lawyer up, you may lose a lot of money. And depending on the lawyer, you may lose a lot of money. That feels like practicing for a basketball game your entire life, and then god says the night before, "I'm making you a midget and this is going to be midget basketball." So no matter how hard you train, and if you win -- outside the court you're just this midget holding a basketball.

2. Take a deep look at what the future might hold, and plan for contingencies, changes of circumstance, and don't simply roll over. Which can't be easy if there is a high emotional component involved, but yeah.

Oh, yeah. Question, and I think you touched upon it with Foley and his arrears. What's the process when one party doesn't meet their end of the settlement? I hear about wage garnishments, but I've always been curious if there are other recourses? As you say, jailtime is counter to the notion "he needs to make money in order to pay." How do you leverage payment out of a person who abjectly refuses to follow the terms of the settlement?

Ever since the days of PEOPLE'S COURT, I've wondered what happened after the show. Like are there enforcers from the show that drive out to your house and make sure you pay up? And why weren't those guys ever featured? I mean, there's your show right there!

Prenups can go a long way to help manage the risks associated with the breakdown of a marriage. I sometimes tell clients "you can spend $1000 on a prenup now, or $10,000 on your divorce later".

If a person doesn't have a prenup, then the best advice I can offer someone is obviously to get a lawyer, and get things dealt with as soon as possible. If you let issues linger without resolving them it just makes things harder.

As for enforcement, it's someone dependent on a given jurisdiction, but typically remedies would be garnishment of wages or accounts, and seizure of assets - such as seizing a vehicle or foreclosing on a home.