Category: Divorce, child support, custody, family law

Happy National Paperclip Day (apparently popular in the Florida Free State; see this Orlando Sentinel article).

Until recently, as far as anyone knew, the worse decision that Bill Gates ever made was to launch Clippy.

Now we find out that Gates has a family court plaintiff who will be harvesting roughly half of what he earned prior to encountering her.

Consider that Bill Gates beat Xerox and Apple in the desktop computing market. He triumphed over IBM and its technologically superior OS/2 in operating systems. He defeated the U.S. Department of Justice in a landmark antitrust case (ran out the clock until George W. Bush took over!). He escaped the Internal Revenue Service and taxation by stuffing every share of stock that he wanted to sell into the Gates Foundation where it could be sold without attracting capital gains tax.

The one enemy that he couldn’t defend against or prevail over was his family court plaintiff.

(What if he’d stayed single, but periodically had sex with cash-motivated individuals seeking to make bank via pregnancy and child support? Washington State family law makes it tough for a plaintiff to obtain more than about $400,000 over 18 years. Suppose that Gates’s current plaintiff collects $60 billion. That would have been sufficient to fund 150,000 child support plaintiffs at the top of the Washington State child support guidelines. Maybe some of them could have moved to Massachusetts or California or Arkansas prior to giving birth and availed themselves of unlimited child support, as Hunter Biden’s plaintiff did (sex in D.C.; lawsuit in Arkansas). But “unlimited” doesn’t necessarily mean that sex partners would have been paid anywhere near $60 billion.

What if the Melinda entanglement was more about sex than procreation? If Melinda took advice from Betsy Salkind (“Men are like linoleum floors. Lay ’em right and you can walk all over them for thirty years.”), there would have been a short period of evening excitement followed by decades of deep freeze. A friend who is “familiar” (as the journalists say) with the rates charged by legal escorts in London and Germany says that the maximum that Bill Gates could possibly have paid for the highest-end all-night companionship is $2000 per woman per evening (London rates; substantially cheaper in Germany). A $60 billion fee to an American plaintiff would translate into 30 million evenings of top-class escort service in London or 82,192 years of every-evening companionship with one woman (more than 40,000 years of every-evening companionship with two women). The same friend says that Jeff Bezos’s situation breaks his heart. “He was the richest guy in the world. What is he doing with a 50-year-old who already had kids with two different men?”)

Maybe the most helpful thing to say to someone considering marriage to a less-wealthy lower-earning potential future plaintiff: “Do you think that you’re smarter than Bill Gates?”

Related:

• “The Tragic Life of Clippy, the World’s Most Hated Virtual Assistant”
• Immigrant Dad’s tutorial on the “real hidden figures” in Hidden Figures (Operation Paperclip)
• Melinda Gates inspires women in the workplace (2017)

We are informed that sex between a high-income senior worker at a company and a lower-income junior worker is bad. Yet MacKenzie Scott, then a secretary (“administrative assistant”) at D.E. Shaw, turned sex with Jeff Bezos, a vice-president at the firm, into a multi-$billion fortune. And recently we’ve learned that Melinda Gates, who had sex with the founder/CEO at her employer (Microsoft), will soon join the ranks of strong independent female billionaires. Nobody is saying that it was a mistake for these women to have sex with their respective bosses. Nor is anyone criticizing the bosses for having sex with subordinates and then paying them $billions.

(What if the boss is already married and only “high income” rather than rich? Sex with the boss can still be far more lucrative than continuing to work, depending on the state (see Real World Divorce for each state’s child support formula and this calculation of how much better Ellen Pao would have done by having sex with her boss compared to suing Kleiner Perkins).)

How are people supposed to distinguish between bad-sex-at-the-office and good-sex-at-the-office?

An immigrant friend has been writing about Melinda Gates pulling the ripcord. A sampling:

[14-year-old] read Bill Gates’ divorce tweet and reacted: I so hate it how Americans always describe these things in this annoying sugary way: “we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple” or “we’re no longer a perfect match.” A Russian woman would have said directly: “He got boring” or “He is crazy, I don’t want to deal with him anymore” or “he is running out of money” or “screw him, I am out of here.” In fact, I don’t think any European would talk like Americans do. They wouldn’t probably even say anything because who cares?

I am anticipating a firehose of stories: “Melinda Gates is the real founder of Microsoft, while Bill with the rest of the white men took all the credit”, “Melinda breaks the next layer of the glass ceiling in philanthropy”, “The rising tide of female billionaires: here is how divorce can empower you too”.

From a U.S.-born friend:

So I heard Bill Gates is having a massive parasite removed. The surgical process should cost about 65 billion dollars.

The actual complaint for divorce (“petition” in Washington State) filed by Melinda Gates:

Related:

• Bill Gates Just Taught a Big Lesson to Every Husband in American ‘Moment of Lift,’ Melinda Gates explains how the couple make their partnership work. (Inc., January 2020): “… having both partners share fairly in household work and emotional labor is a very worthwhile goal.” (i.e., the spouse who identifies as a “man” should be responsible for earning 100% of the money and also 50% (as determined by the spouse who identifies as a “woman/plaintiff”) of the household work). Bill Gates apparently adopted a craven posture of submission, but his obeisance wasn’t sufficient to appease the person who ultimately became his plaintiff.
• “Bill and Melinda Gates Shared a Profound Secret to Their Success. It’s a Lesson in Emotional IntelligenceThe Gateses’ ability to deal with disagreements reveals major lessons for teams of all sizes.” (Inc., August 2020): “They exercise empathy. … They give valuable feedback. … They begin with respect. In a world where women are afforded much less opportunity than men, Melinda says she is thankful that she and her husband have achieved true equality–both in their marriage and work relationship.” (but how many people who identify as “men” had the opportunity to have sex with Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates and harvest $billions via divorce?)
• “Bill and Melinda Gates reveal the secret to their marriage success and the topics that are off limits on date night” (Business Insider, February 2018): By their own admission it’s an ‘intense’ setup, but it ‘works well.’ … Melinda said that even though they have disagreements, they always maintain a ‘united front.’ … “Working together as well as raising a family together, there’s a certain intensity to that. But we’re very lucky because we mostly see things the same way, the goals are very much the same,” he said, adding that the couple are now 25 years into learning how to listen to each other. “It works well,” he said.

An all-American story from MarketWatch:

My children’s father recently pledged to pay $10,000 of $20,677 in child-support arrears. … he said divide it between our three adult children. Our adult children are 42, 39, and 34 years old. … If I actually receive these funds as arrears, I plan on giving about half to my children and keeping the rest

The advice columnist:

You obviously kept on the case to ensure the father of your children made recompense, and I applaud you for never giving up on that. … Children only need one good parent to love and support them, and I am sure they have benefited from having you.

Splitting the support 50/50 is generous, perhaps more than generous, even if you were not still helping out your children. This money is designed to compensate YOU. The fact that your ex does not want the money to go to you suggests that he is too big for his breeches, even after all these years. This is YOUR money. … You clearly made many sacrifices in your life to raise three children. YOU deserve every last red cent.

The above dispute was under Texas family law.

Note that the situation can be similar in the utopia to our north:

Canada’s child support system seems to sow discord among Canadians. We interviewed a professor at one of Canada’s top universities. She said that it irked her that her partner paid four times as much in child support to his ex-wife as she was paid for full-time employment as a PhD researcher and teacher. We interviewed a man in his 20s who said that the system via which adult child support was paid to a parent has caused friction between himself and his mother. “I was graduated from college, working, and living in my own apartment,” he recalled. “She was getting $750 per month in child support from my dad for me. I would ask her why it shouldn’t be paid to me.” What was she doing with the money? “She retired from her job in the software industry and was doing a lot of international vacation travel.”

But I am not sure that the Canadians can keep the fight going when the “child” is 42!

“Unmarried Ontario couple had no children and no house but man must still pay support, appeal court rules” (National Post):

Under Ontario law, an unmarried couple are considered common-law spouses if they have cohabited — lived together in a conjugal relationship — continuously for at least three years. But that doesn’t necessarily mean living in the same home, the court found.

“Lack of a shared residence is not determinative of the issue of cohabitation,” the Appeal Court said. “There are many cases in which courts have found cohabitation where the parties stayed together only intermittently.”

The decision comes in the case of Lisa Climans and Michael Latner, both of Toronto, who began a romantic relationship after meeting in October 2001. At the time, she was 38 and separated with two children, court records show. He was 46 and divorced with three children.

Although they maintained their separate homes, Latner and Climans behaved as a couple both privately and publicly. They vacationed together. He gave her a 7.5-carat diamond ring and other jewelry that she wore. She quit her job and would regularly sleep at his house. They travelled together and talked about living together.

Latner proposed several times and Climans accepted. He often referred to her by his last name. However, he insisted she sign a marriage contract and came up with several drafts. She refused.

Throughout their relationship, the two kept separate bank accounts and never owned property in common. Nevertheless, Latner gave Climans thousands of dollars every month, a credit card, paid off her mortgage and showered her with expensive gifts. He provided her and her children with a “lavish lifestyle,” the court found.

When their 14-year relationship finally broke down in May 2015, Climans asked the courts to recognize her as Latner’s spouse and order him to pay her support. He argued she had been a travel companion and girlfriend, nothing more. As such, he said, they were never legally spouses and he owed no support. An eight-day trial ensued.

In her decision in February 2019, Superior Court Justice Sharon Shore sided with Climans. She ruled they were in fact long-time spouses, finding that despite their separate home, they lived under one roof at Latner’s cottage for part of the summer, and during winter vacations in Florida. Shore ordered him to pay her $53,077 monthly indefinitely. Latner appealed.

The Appeal Court did find Shore had made an error in deciding how long Latner would have to pay Climans support based on when they first began cohabiting. While Shore had found that to be almost from the get-go, the higher court said it wasn’t earlier than their first stay together at his cottage, meaning they didn’t reach the threshold for indefinite payments.

Instead, it ordered him to pay her support for 10 years.

So, the gal who refused to sign the prenuptial agreement will end up with CAD$6,369,240 (about $5 million U.S.). Canadians who identify as “women” and who work full-time full-year earn about CAD$52,500 per year (statcan). Thus, for her work as a travel companion, jewelry recipient, and (presumably) sex partner, Lisa Climans will receive, in addition to gifts already banked, 121 years of salary at the average wage paid to a Canadian identifying as a “woman” who endures the drudgery of 40 hours per week in the labor force.

In the Distillery District of Toronto… Love (possibly convertible into cash).

What was the old/conventional understanding of the law? From a group of divorce, custody, and child support litigators in Ontario:

In Ontario, Canada, two people are considered common law partners if they have been continuously living together in a conjugal relationship for at least three years. If they have a child together by birth or adoption, then they only need to have been living together for one year.

In Canada, a “conjugal relationship” is more than just a sexual relationship. A “conjugal relationship” in Canada is one in which two people share a home, finances, friend groups, and an emotional connection on top of having a sexual relationship.

Related:

• Canada chapter of Real World Divorce

A recent Facebook post:

(Text: “15 years ago today my then-wife demanded a divorce. I think it shocked her when I walked out of that house a few minutes later, never looking back. Much was lost in that moment. Much was gained.”)

Representative comment:

We’re all here to learn! I know you’ve learned a lot and have had another chance to be a wonderful husband and father!

I have had a chance to talk to this guy in real life a bit. He is unaware of whether the wife-turned-plaintiff is dead or alive. He also hadn’t spoken with a child from that marriage for many years and was unaware as to whether the child, who would have been an adult at that point, was dead or alive. (The former life was in a different state.)

When we interviewed people for Real World Divorce, the defendants who moved to different states or countries and rebooted as though the marriage had never occurred did seem to have recovered the best from being attacked in family court. But I think this is an extreme example of being “present” as the Buddhists would say.