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Divorce were alimony before the court of appeals rendered its
opinion in 1991.
It is less clear, however, whether the payments are alimony
after the court of appeals remanded the case to the trial court.
If the effect of the court of appeals opinion was to specifically
remove the termination upon death language in the Judgment of
Divorce, the payments made by Gregory Ryan to Frances Ryan may
not be alimony under Michigan State law. If, however, the court
of appeals opinion modified the Judgment of Divorce, yet left the
termination upon death provision intact, the payments clearly are
alimony.
The court of appeals opinion states in pertinent part:
the trial court ordered that defendant be paid alimony
until death or changed circumstances. We note that
defendant requested only an eight-year alimony award.
In light of defendant's testimony that she would
require alimony for eight years, we find the trial
court's order of permanent alimony improper.
Accordingly, we remand for modification of the divorce
judgment to reflect an alimony award of $250 a week for
eight years.
In light of the language contained in the court of appeals
opinion, we find that the termination upon death provision
contained in the Judgment of Divorce was not modified by the
higher court's opinion. The issue raised in the appeal was the
length of the alimony payments, not whether the payments were in
fact alimony. We conclude that the original nature of the
payments was not changed; instead, the payments were merely
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