Can You Get Alimony In Your Ocean Springs Divorce?

Can you get alimony in your Ocean Springs divorce?  This question starts with the Mississippi Legislature.

I say that because the the legislature passes laws that determine certain things in a divorce.

Section 93-5-23 of the Mississippi Code shows that, in a divorce, the court can determine alimony.

This section states, “. . .and also touching the maintenance and alimony of the wife or the husband, or any allowance to be made to her or him. . .”

You can read the full statute by clicking on

Section 93-5-23 of the Mississippi Code

Can You Get Alimony In Your Ocean Springs Divorce?

If you end up needing an Ocean Springs Divorce Lawyer, you’ll have to talk about alimony.

So what the heck is alimony anyway?

There are several types.

I’m going to talk about “lump sum alimony.”

Lump sum alimony is a tool to assist a chancery court in transferring assets to a spouse who has no legal title, but who contributed to the accumulation of property in the marriage.

So let’s take an example from the Mississippi Supreme Court.

In the case of Jenkins v. Jenkins, decided way back in 1973, the Court note that the marriage started out with both parties having no assets.  At the time of the divorce, the husband had assets of $800,000.00.  As a result, the Mississippi Supreme Court held that the wife contributed to the marriage by doing her part as a housewife so she gets lump sum alimony.

Now, another case came along later where the Mississippi Supreme Court decided to allow division of the marital property itself so the necessity of lump sum alimony greatly diminished but it has not disappeared.

The Court held, “although we continue to refer to certain payments as ‘lump sum alimony,’ these payments are really no more than equitable distribution in the form of lump sum cash, rather than an equitable portion of certain property which cannot be divided equitably.”

In Haney v. Haney, decided in 2005 by the Mississippi Court of Appeals, the Court held,

“In determining a spouse’s contribution which justifies equitable distribution, we look not only at cash contributions and assistance in the spouse’s workplace or business, but also to domestic work in the home such as caring for children, cooking meals, cleaning house, and washing and ironing clothes. “The persistent attempts made to put a monetary value on a homemaker’s contributions are likely to undervalue the magnitude of such contributions.”  Ferguson, 639 So.2d at 926 n. 2.  The spouse who is accumulating the monetary assets will have more time to accumulate more assets if someone is taking care of all of the domestic responsibilities.

We find no case, however, which authorizes the award of lump sum alimony or an equitable distribution of non-marital assets based upon nothing more than one spouse’s need and the other’s ability to pay.  More justification is needed.  That is why the Cheatham factors and the Ferguson factors were provided.”

You can read the entire Haney case by clicking on

Haney v. Haney Mississippi Supreme Court

Can You Get Alimony In Your Ocean Springs Divorce?

So that’s why the Mississippi Supreme Court came up with the idea of equitable division of martial assets.

The Court needed some way of determining how to divide assets.

And if you end up getting an Ocean Springs divorce lawyer, you’ll have to figure out how to divide the assets.

This is especially true where your spouse drains the bank accounts when you get separated.

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