Answering Marriage Seller Assertions, Talking Points, and Questions - Part 15

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here and Part 3 here and Part 4 here and Part 5 here and Part 6 here and Part 7 here and Part 8 here and Part 9 here and Part 10 here. and Part 11 here and Part 12 here and Part 13 here and Part 14 here.


Alimony is rare and/or limited now, and child custody is default 50/50 which means no child support.

A family law attorney publicly asserted this to me. Now why would someone with a financial incentive in people getting married say that?!?

Guess what? Don't enter into a terrible state contract and the risk of alimony is ZERO.

What matters is what the laws say. And the laws allow the higher earning spouse (usually the man), to get screwed over.

I'm glad if the terrible state contract is being enforced to the full extent less often these days, but nobody should ever sign a terrible contract on the chance that it wouldn't actually be enforced against them in a devastating way.

Guys, don't fall for "Trust me!" from someone who has a financial incentive in you making a stupid decision. Don't let misleading weasel words fool you. Don't enable the state to come further into your life and your finances. The terrible state contract isn't necessary.

You can get tagged for child support even if you didn't want children and even if the child was conceived by her having an affair!

Every time she wants to ask for more alimony, every time she wants to change the custody agreement, every time she wants more child support, you're going to have to pay legal costs, and maybe spend time in court.

Today, right now, there are seemingly endless lines of men who are coming out of family courts with terrible outcomes. They are losing their children, homes, possessions, and money.

The best way to win is to not play.

Did One Fly Out of the Cuckold's Nest?

We can read about a small, perhaps even temporary victory for victims of paternity fraud, in this ABC News report from Christina Ng.

A man who discovered that the daughter he raised was not really his can sue the biological father for $190,000 -the estimated cost of raising her for 15 years - the Connecticut State Supreme Court has ruled.

Good for the court!

Eric Fischer saw the red flags. When his youngest daughter was born, his wife Pamela Tournier's close friend and business partner Richard Zollino rode home in the limo with the new parents. For the next 15 years, Zollino was omnipresent at the girl's musical recitals as well as her eighth grade graduation. And his youngest daughter did not look like his other two daughters, including one from a previous marriage.

Fischer decided to confirm what he already suspected. He "surreptitiously obtained" a hair sample from his daughter and sent it to lab with his own DNA sample and in October 2006, he received the results that "excluded the possibility that he was the younger daughter's father," according to a court document.

Fischer confronted his wife and they divorced in 2007.

The couple's separation agreement only listed the couple's elder daughter as issue of the marriage and Tournier testified that she believed the agreement was fair and that "she believed [Zollino] was the younger daughter's father and that he had provided the younger daughter with support since and would continue to do so," according to the court document.

I have to wonder how the marriage was otherwise?

Zollino submitted a DNA sample and it was confirmed that he was the girl's father.

He was the sperm donor. Her father is the man who raised her.

In 2008, Fischer filed a lawsuit against [Zollino] seeking damages on claims of nondisclosure, misrepresentation and unjust enrichment.

A lower court ruled against Fischer, saying that he "had held himself out to be the younger daughter's father, that he had caused her to rely on him to meet her financial and emotional needs, and that revealing her true parentage after she had been led to believe for her whole life that [Fisher] was her father, would be detrimental to her emotional well-being."

Well hey, that happened anyway, didn’t it? Why can’t the courts quietly and secretly award damages along with an order that the truth not be told to the child under penalty of violating the court order? He held himself out to be the girl's father because he was defrauded. A fraud victim does not lose his or her right to seek recourse just because they were duped. They have to be duped in the first place for the fraud to take place.

California Marriage Amendment on Trial

Will a court that is supposed to be bound by the state constitution place themselves above the constitution? Or will they affirm the California Marriage Amendment, voted in as Propostion 8? The Playful Walrus explains.

Man Bites Dog! (Woman to Pay Penalty For Marrying)

Poor Anne Heche.

Actually, I guess I could say "poor Ellen DeGeneres" and "poor Coleman Laffoon", for the fact that both of them lived with Heche, who has demonstrated mental instability. That can't be fun. DeGeneres moved on to a much hotter woman. Laffoon, having married Heche, is getting some very nice parting gifts now that there is a divorce settlement.

Anne Heche's five-year marriage to Coleman Laffoon is officially over, but not without a pinch to her pocketbook.

A judge ruled that Heche must pay $275,000 to her ex-husband, along with monthly child-support payments of $3,700 for the care of their 6-year-old son, Homer, according to court documents released Friday.

Only $275,000 for five years of marriage? Something tells me that if the sexes were reversed, that would be a much higher number. Perhaps there was some sort of agreement that the judge interpreted? On the other hand, what's with the $3,700 per month in child support? It doesn't take that much money to raise a child. Something tells me this will benefit Laffoon more than the child. Can't he support himself? Can't most women in divorce cases support themselves?

Heche will also have to pay 75 percent of Homer's private-school tuition. The couple agreed to split the cost of any "agreed upon extracurricular activities" for their son.

I can picture Laffoon saying "Hey, the kid needs a trip to Europe" and Heche disagreeing that he even needs go to the movies. So she's covering most of the tuition, and still has to pay all of that money in "child support".

Heche, 39, and Laffoon, 34, were married Sept. 1, 2001. He filed for divorce on Feb. 2, citing irreconcilable differences.

If this was in California, I don't think there is much you can cite other than "irreconcilable differences". But my interpretation of that is "My wife is nuts. Yes, I knew that before marrying her, but I finally realized I can live comfortably on her money without putting up with her!"

Heche starred in TV's "Men in Trees." She and Laffoon, a cameraman, met while working on a documentary about Ellen DeGeneres — with whom Heche was
romantically linked for three years.

It is very telling that the father is getting custody.

To me, this is another example of showing that the alimony and child support realities in our system are unfair. It just so happens that in this case, the male is benefitting financially at the expense of the female - which is rare.

In other Hollywood news, Vin Diesel and model Paloma Jimenez just had a child out of wedlock, making them illegitimate parents and setting a horrible example. At least they didn't have it sucked into a sink.

Tips at Starbucks

Recently, a California court ruled that Starbucks “baristas” in California were due money because they had to share tips with shift supervisors, who got a portion of the tips in the store tip jar.

I don’t get this.

Shift supervisors are the first level of management, true, but they are working right there on the front lines with the baristas. If I was a shift supervisor at a Starbucks in California, I would henceforth refuse to do anything but “manage”. Down a barista and the baristas who showed up are overwhelmed? Too bad! Why should a shift supervisor have to do work that baristas are tipped for, but be denied the tips?

Noelle Kooler of Beverly Hills wrote in to the Los Angeles Times, making my point:

As a former barista and shift supervisor at Starbucks, I am angered by the court's decision. Yes, I am a part of the class-action group that would receive additional tip money. However, the principles behind this lawsuit are outrageous. I've worked in three stores, and in every one, the shift supervisor does almost double the work of a barista. They help customers, make drinks, train new baristas and ensure that the store functions when the managers are away. They earn only a few dollars an hour more than a barista. When I worked at Starbucks, I was a struggling college student and needed those tips. To rule that baristas are more deserving is ludicrous -- tips should be shared evenly.

But I have to wonder why courts are involved in this anyway. I mean really – if some baristas were not happy with the tip situation, why didn’t they just quit and work elsewhere? That’s what people should do when they don’t like a company’s policies or procedures. Nobody is holding a gun to your head to keep you there.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, why are people tipping other people for doing their jobs? I tip for personalized service. Putting coffee into a cup is not personalized service. Carrying my bags a distance is. Waiting on me is. But don’t worry, you baristas – you won’t be making coffee for me and then not getting a tip from me - I don’t frequent Starbucks because it is incredibly overpriced and the whole thing is pretentious.

Hmmm, maybe I should put a tip jar on my desk at the office. Or maybe on my office door, right under my name.