By The Law Offices of Ronald H. Kauffman of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Friday, February 19, 2016.
Purposefully losing your divorce sounds crazy. But one Chinese company just lost a lawsuit on purpose. What would it take to lose your divorce if you really wanted to?
It seems like an unlikely topic, losing a lawsuit. But, some companies are trying to avoid China’s new strict capital controls – which limit sending overseas $50,000 a year – except for business-related payments.
One Chinese company found out that if they deliberately lost a lawsuit for a phony breach of contract claim, a $3.5 million payout could be used to pay its own entities in the U.S. to get around currency controls.
I’ve written on courtroom tactics before. The Chinese situation got me to thinking about family law. What would you have to do to lose a divorce case on purpose?
Avoiding Chinese capital controls may not apply to most American divorces, but if you really want to lose your divorce case, here are some practical tips:
Hide Your Records
The first thing you want to do is hide all your important financial records: tax returns, pay stubs, bank statements. Afterwards, you can walk into court and plead ignorance. Basically, you’re forcing your spouse’s attorneys to subpoena the documents which will be re-created, after a lot of time and extra expense.
Drain bank accounts
Closing all the bank accounts will force your spouse to run to court on an emergency basis. That’s exactly what you want, having the judge associate your case with crisis. The best part: there’s a new administrative order that specifically prohibits that kind of thing.
Cancel health insurance
Canceling your spouse’s health insurance not only violates the new status quo administrative order, it is another way to get hauled back into court on an emergency basis, and increase your legal fees. If you’re looking to avoid any Chinese monetary controls, spending your cash on a lawyer is as good a way as any.
Represent yourself
The old saying: “the person who represents themselves has a fool for a client” is probably wrong. Lawyers are for the rich and famous. If you can handle your own dentistry, you can easily handle your own divorce.
Lie
Lying has two big advantages:
Lying to your attorney will surprise him in court, and lawyers love to be surprised in court. And, if you want to lose, there’s really no substitute for lying to the judge deciding your case.
If losing your divorce on purpose becomes a necessity, remember that lying, hiding assets, cutting off health insurance and representing yourself is a great way to do it.
The Wall Street Journal article is here.