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fruition, so if Dr. Perkins had died during that time
that she was receiving what is clearly the alimony in
futuro, she would have had no more income, and she
would have had to have gone to her savings.
In our view, in light of its placement in the MDA and
attorney Miller’s testimony, the most reasonable construction of
paragraph 14(f) of the MDA is that it represents contingency
planning designed to provide an alternative source of funds from
which Dr. Perkins would pay alimony in futuro in the event that
he was to become disabled.6 The purpose of paragraph 14(f) was
to ensure that Dr. Perkins would pay alimony in futuro even if he
could no longer work, not to divide a marital asset. That
obligation, like Dr. Perkins’s obligation under paragraph 14(a)
of the MDA, constituted alimony in futuro which, pursuant to
Tenn. Code Ann. sec. 36-5-101(a)(2)(B), would not have survived
petitioner’s death. Because that obligation would not have
survived petitioner’s death, and because the other requirements
of section 71(b) were met, see supra note 4, petitioner was
required to include in her gross income the money she received
pursuant to paragraph 14(f) of the MDA. See sec. 71(a).
6 As noted earlier, par. 14(a) of the MDA provided that Dr.
Perkins would pay to petitioner, until May 9, 2004, when she
would reach the age of 59-1/2, alimony in futuro in an amount
equal to 20 percent of Dr. Perkins’s earned income. It is only
logical to infer that payments to petitioner of a portion of Dr.
Perkins’s disability benefits under par. 14(f) of the MDA, also
calculated at 20 percent, were intended as a substitute for the
earnings lost as a result of the disability.
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