Refiguring the Spousal Support Equation : Law: Two rulings uphold reducing payments by one man who cut his overtime and another who joined a monastery.

You say you’re tired of the rat race? Fed up working overtime to support an ex-spouse?

You say you yearn to be an artist, a priest or a nun? But you can’t get off the treadmill because the court says work, work, work so you can pay, pay, pay ?

Merry Christmas.

Two California court decisions recently came down on the side of divorced people who cut their work hours--and their support payments--to pursue lives more fulfilling but less economically sound.

In each case, Southern California men asked for relief from court-ordered support payments to ex-wives. In each case, the courts rendered news-making decisions on knotty legal issues that could set trends.

Issue 1: If a spouse works abnormally long hours during marriage, should support payments be based on a capacity to earn big bucks? Or should payments be based on the much lower amount that would be earned if he or she worked “normal” hours. The court ruled in favor of “normal” hours.

Issue 2: If a spouse divorces after a lengthy marriage, and then decides simply to quit work, should he or she be entitled to stop paying support? The court ruled that the person could stop work and stop support payments if the motives were sincere and he or she wasn’t simply trying to avoid obligations.

Some attorneys around town applaud the decisions, saying courts usually come down hard on spouses who pay support--usually men.

Others are appalled, sensing the extension of an anti-female trend. They say Philbin vs. Philbin, in 1971, was the start of the long slide into what has become a murky pond of spousal dispute--with men generally managing to stay afloat and women winding up in the sludge.

In that precedent-setting California case, Regis Philbin’s attorney persuaded the court to drastically reduce payments because Philbin was not earning big bucks at the time, although he had previously. The attorney argued that spousal support should be based on actual income rather than on ability to earn. The court agreed and, in the past month, two courts in California have gone in the same direction.

Until now, people usually sought to reduce payments to ex-spouses because they had lost their jobs, had been forced to cut back work hours or were legitimately unable to work because of health reasons. The two recent decisions, attorneys say, have already spurred calls from clients who are considering working less.

In Meegan vs. Meegan, an appeals court in Santa Ana on Nov. 25 affirmed that Patrick Meegan’s support payments should be reduced from $739 a month to zero.

That’s because Meegan, an Orange County sales executive with a net income of $4,700 a month, resigned his job in 1991 to take vows of poverty and “lead a life of prayer and good works.”

He had entered the Holy Trinity Monastery in St. David, Ariz., where he says he hopes to become a Catholic priest. Since he was no longer employed, he told the court, he could not afford to pay his ex-wife.

The court found that Meegan’s former wife, a nurse, wouldn’t suffer “substantial reduction in her standard of living” without his support.

The court also ruled that Patrick, 57, “acted in good faith” when he quit his job, and was not trying to “avoid his spousal obligations.”

This did not thrill Elizabeth Ann, mother of Patrick’s two daughters (now ages 19 and 25), from whom Patrick was divorced in 1988. She told the court what her former husband did “is no different than if he had decided to stop work and spend the rest of his life surfing.”

On Wednesday, her attorney, Michael Leight of Seal Beach, asked the state Supreme Court to review the case.

Leight says the issue is clear: “Can a person who is obligated to pay spousal support simply decide to stop working--and be entitled to stop paying support based on that decision?”

In Simpson vs. Simpson, the state’s highest court ruled on Dec. 17 that a man cannot be forced to work overtime to keep his spouse in the style to which he had accustomed her.

During their 7 1/2-year marriage, which dissolved in 1988, Richard Simpson, of Downey, earned $60,000 to $70,000 a year as a stagehand, much of that from overtime.

Based on his capacity to earn, the trial court ordered Richard to pay $1,650 per month in combined spousal and child support through January, 1990; after that, he would pay $1,000 a month for three years.

But Richard, now 42, appealed. He argued that he’d only worked long hours to keep his wife Barbara and their daughter afloat. He also said that he suffered from stress and wasn’t able to work overtime anymore. (He had cut back to 40 hours a week, for an income of about $25,000 a year.)

The state Supreme Court ruled that Richard could not be forced to work excessive overtime hours after marriage simply because he had worked those hours during marriage. The court ordered the lower court to recalculate Richard’s obligations based on what he would earn from more reasonable working hours.

In general, the court ruled, spouses should not be locked into an “excessively onerous schedule” simply because they had one in the past.

The Simpson and Meegan decisions are causing discussion among divorce attorneys.

“Quit Work and Play Tennis?” is how Century City divorce lawyer Stuart B. Walzer headlines an article he’s writing on the case of the man who would be priest. “Motivation was everything in that decision,” Walzer says. “The court decided that the man’s motivations are pure. He has a right to choose his occupation, so long as he doesn’t choose it for spiteful or malicious motives.”

The Simpson case, Walzer says, is more typical. “Doctors, for example, typically work enormous hours and develop a higher and higher standard of living. Soon they’re on emotional and physical overload. Then comes the divorce, often with accusations that the doctor is a workaholic and never at home. But the spouse wants to maintain the same standard of living to which the family is accustomed.

“The doctor says: ‘You’re divorcing me because I’m killing myself, and you want me to continue killing myself? I refuse. I want to cut back my hours.’ They go to court. The doctor claims deteriorating health, no life outside of medicine, and requests support payments based on a normal workday.”

Beverly Hills lawyer Howard Weitzman says of Simpson vs. Simpson: “It seems ludicrous for the court to order someone to work extraordinary hours . . . solely for the purpose of maintaining a lifestyle that no longer exists. I define lifestyle to mean the relationship that the spouses had together before the divorce.”

While attorney Marvin Mitchelson says he agrees in principle with both court decisions, “you’d be amazed at how many men threaten, out of jealousy or rage, to quit work and go off to Tahiti, like Gauguin.” Sometimes they do go, Mitchelson says, but the ploy doesn’t work. The court says, “ ‘You’re a doctor or a lawyer, not a beachcomber. And even though you’re sitting on the beach, we’re going to order the kind of support that you’re capable of earning.’ ”

Attorney Gloria Allred says she gave her “Read My Lipstick Award” for “outrage of the week against women” to the court “that decided Meegan could be relieved of all spousal support” because he wanted to become a priest.

“The trend is downward and downward for women,” Allred says, “with fewer and fewer obtaining spousal support and for shorter and shorter periods of time.

“The trend today is to allow the ex-husband to change his lifestyle. But the ex-wife, if she wants to chuck it all and go into a monastery, she can’t. Who will feed the kids? Who will provide the home? Who will take the responsibility? Usually it’s the woman,” Allred says.

“Spousal support was invented not to punish ex-husbands but to provide an alternative for the ex-wife, so she wouldn’t be forced into welfare and into accepting taxpayer support.”

Nowadays, Allred would prefer that judges view spousal support “as deferred compensation for the investment a woman has made in her home and family.”

In a bizarre twist, both Simpson lawyers seem to believe they’ve won.

Says attorney Michael J. Rand, of Encino: “Mr. Simpson won his case. It’s a good decision because spousal support should be based on normal earnings. If the supporting spouse is made to work at an inhuman pace, you interfere with” many things, including the person’s relationship with his children.

Barbara Simpson’s attorney, Cheri Kadotani of Downey, says the state Supreme Court decision is also a victory for her client.

“Lost in the media shuffle here is the fact that the Supreme Court found the husband (acted) in bad faith when he cut back his working hours. The Supreme Court ruled that it could not tell from records whether the husband had worked extraordinary overtime or a reasonable amount of overtime for someone in his profession.”

The decision ensures that her client will eventually get a fair amount of child and spousal support, Kadotani believes, because the court will recalculate how many overtime hours, if any, are normal for someone in his line of work. “And fairness is all we strive for.”

Kadotani also sees the case as a child’s rights issue.

“There’s a little girl here who is suffering, who everyone seems to forget. What the courts do will directly impact this kid’s life. Suddenly, she’s living with her mom, the financial rug pulled out from under her, with a father refusing to pay support.”