Standing by his earlier ruling, a Cook County judge held Monday that half of the fortune amassed by a Chicago energy industry magnate should go to his wife – about $184 million – in their divorce case. Circuit Judge William Boyd originally ruled in October that Maya Polsky should share half of husband Michael Polsky’s fortune, but both sides had asked the judge to reconsider. Boyd’s decision Monday actually meant an additional $8 million for Maya Polsky because updated financial figures showed the couple’s net worth had grown since last October.
Lawyers for Michael Polsky, chief executive of Invenergy LLC, had argued that his “skill, genius and drive” had created the fortune and that his wife, primarily a homemaker during the 31-year marriage, didn’t deserve half. Those lawyers didn’t return a telephone call seeking comment, but in a Tribune story Monday, a legal expert said he expected any decision to be appealed.
| Wow! And more than $170 million of the award is not taxable according to her attorney. |
Bullshit. Then you wonder why some husbands kill their wives instead of getting divorced.
If she got 184M$, it’s because hubby has at least that much also in personal assets.
The 50/50 rule applies also to the mega-rich. Sorry, but 31 years as a homemaker enduring life with a high-level executive, she does indeed deserve half. Good for her.
Rule 1: Keep wife happy.
Rule 2: If you fail at rule 1, don’t hire lawyers from the Taliban.
Perry
“Sorry, but 31 years as a homemaker enduring life with a high-level executive, she does indeed deserve half. Good for her.”
I call bullshit. 31 years of homework in no way, shape, or form is worth $184 million dollars. If she were really just a housewife that means she’s pretty much a maid… when’s the last time you heard of a maid making half of their bosses salary? Call me callous or sexist if you must, but I believe a spouse needs to earn their money and if they don’t… well then they’re no more entitled to it than a complete stranger.
What a great deal.
Be a “Home-maker” to a millionaire. Imagine that, 31 years of shopping for shoes and purses and yelling at the illegal alien housekeeper must be awful. Then , get a divorce from the old fart husband get a 20 year old stud and spend $184M shopping for good Botox.
they made a pact when they recited the marriage vows. What was his was hers and what was hers was his, just because he made allot of money doesn’t let him out of his contractual agreement she deserves half and I say she earned it
Being a housewife is a very tough job, mabey not as tough as a top level executive but a deal is a deal and he should live up to his half
she deserves it
# 4 & 5, Never been married, huh? My wife and I jokingly claim that the only reason we’ve been married so long is “that we’ve both seen too many CSIs” 🙂 Still in love after 36 years, how lucky can you get?
I’ll bet divorce stinks, even with $184M. I wouldn’t trade my wife, family or friends for any amount of money, but that’s just me.
She may be legally entitled to it, but don’t for one second think she actually earned it.
She may be legally entitled to it, but don’t for one second think she actually earned it. She doesn’t ethically deserve half of his fortune, only legally. But then… that’s what prenups were made for.
Sorry #7, I am married. Very happily too, I might add.
#9, Dustin, that’s great!
31 years of homework in no way, shape, or form is worth $184 million dollars.
I must take exception to that statement. If you knew what my wife has to put up with (ie. me, a cranky geek), and all the work she does, you might want to restate that (well, my wife would) . 🙂
Rule 1: you always pay for pussy Rule 2:Keep wife happy.Married for 34 years and still wondering how she puts up with me.
She deserves enough of the money to live in the lifestyle she’s used to for the rest of her life. That would certainly be less than $184,000,000. That’s an obscene amount of money. She should be able to live quite comfortably on $30,000,000 or so.
I don’t have a beef with the $184mil being split. I figure you know that going into the marriage that it’s supposed to be a union til death so on and so forth.
My beef is that she was awarded the extra $8mil *after* they had effectively separated / filed for divorce. She made $8mil not be being a homemaker or performing wifely duties. She made $8mil simply because he kept working and she did nothing for him.
That’s my beef with the whole divorce/family law process in general. It (almost) always sides in favor of the woman.
We all know the score with it – there’s not much use in going through the details – nothing will change. Still, I think it’s unfair she made $8mil after the marriage was effectively over off of his hard work.
10. I think the point being made is this woman led a life of priviledge. I am fairly confident she never had to wash a dish, or do housework of any kind, unlike you wife or mine Bubba. And the courts take that into consideration. My wife actually deserves more than half if we were ever to do divorce (but please, dont tell her that), she is one of a kind. But I saw a good friends’ (my business partners’) life destroyed by a bitter ex who knew nothing of hard work, and watched us build a small business working our ass off, while she flew to LA to get manicures and waxing. She was a spoiled bitch who had a great lawyer, took him and part of myself to the cleaners. He was one of the hardest working guys I have ever met and didnt deserve to have it all taken away.
#4 – I call bullshit. 31 years of homework in no way, shape, or form is worth $184 million dollars.
Maybe not. But very little else is either… After the first 50 million, isn’t all just a little superfluous? So he pays 184 mil. The good news is he still has 184 million. Try to wrap your head around what that means before you go off on your woman hating testosterone solidarity rant. This guy ain’t hurt in the least.
#6 – they made a pact when they recited the marriage vows. What was his was hers and what was hers was his, just because he made allot of money doesn’t let him out of his contractual agreement she deserves half and I say she earned it
I hear the trumpets and galloping hoof steps!
I agree with you twice in as many days!
I need a drink….
“So he pays 184 mil. The good news is he still has 184 million. Try to wrap your head around what that means before you go off on your woman hating testosterone solidarity rant. This guy ain’t hurt in the least.”
Hers isn’t taxable :/
lol
#13- You’re exactly right, the fact that the judge awarded 8 million to the wife because the man’s net worth was increased during the divorce trial is absolutely ridiculous. you really can’t justify that part at all. I think that the fact that the judge did this is testimony for how crazy the rest of the 176 million is. Obviously the wife deserves some of the money, but in no way shape or form did her existence equate to a 184 million dollar settlement.
#15. Your idea that after 50 million, what’s another 134? is pretty off too. You might not be able to fathom the value of money at that level, but that is a %^*load of money that that man earned himself that he deserves to do what he wants with, like invest in his or other companies. I don’t know anything about the wife, but let me make a guess that one possibility is that she’ll invest in a lot of cosmetic surgery.
I think that the wife (or the husband, there are sugar mommas too) is entitled to all of their shared net worth while their married, and that that’s one huge incentive for being married to that man or woman. Sorry to throw in morals, but what kind of a legal system sets up incentives for people to divorce to make hundreds of millions of dollars?
I’m 20 years old and an aspiring businessman, and court cases like this one make me terrified about marriage.
And that’s why gay sex is better.
although I can’t wait to see what happens if Elton John and David Furnish get a divorce.
#12: “She should be able to live quite comfortably on $30,000,000 or so.” Well, so would he I imagine. Jeez, how much does anybody need to live? Even a pretty extravagant life. Argueing about amounts of money like this always amuses me. Once you get past a certain point, money ceases to have real personal value, it’s just used to establish some supposed superiority.
No doubt her lawyers are wetting their pants with excitement!
(all these posts and no lawyer bashing yet. you guys are slowing down)
#14, mark, I’ve heard stories like this and I still lament that people can be so shallow and cruel to each other. I’m just glad we’re so lucky. Life’s too short to worry about the small stuff.
I got lucky too and married a woman that I am still in love with.
But you guys have some fun with this, I thought it was hiliarous.
http://www.costofsex.com/
#13 – She deserves enough of the money to live in the lifestyle she’s used to for the rest of her life.
Why? I’m surely not enjoying the same lifestyle that I used to. I don’t have an issue with her getting an ungodly sum of money from his ungodly sum, but I don’t buy into the notion that anyone deserves a luxurious lifestyle.
#18 – You might not be able to fathom the value of money at that level, but that is a %^*load of money that that man earned himself that he deserves to do what he wants with, like invest in his or other companies.
I have no trouble understanding how much money we are talking about… Now… what do you mean by “earned”? What do you mean by “deserved”? So he’s a successful suit. Who cares? Maybe he earned it. I don’t know. I don’t have any idea what you’d have to do to “earn” $350 million plus dollars. I definitely can’t imagine what one would do to “deserve” it.
He will never starve a day in his life. He will never be unable to but medical services. He will never have to deny himself a creature comfort. He will never have to worry about anything… ever…
Right now I’m trying to figure out how much I can budget for a trip out of town I want to take tomorrow and I have to make sure that I can afford the gas, food, and everything else, while not having to sacrifice a bill or, god forbid, the rent… This what I, a full time technical professional, am worried about.
So, no, sorry… I don’t give a rat’s ass if Richie Rich has 250 million or 200 million or 184 million or even 50 million. He’s still too fucking rich for me to have to worry about. I have REAL problems.
And if you are “terrified” about getting married because someday you want to be rich, then you have a REAL problem too. In fact, you have far worse problems than I do, because my problems are only about trivial stuff like money.
One of the problems with divorce and men typically being screwed by it is that if you dare to complain about it you usually get one of these reactions:
* You’re just a woman-hater
* You’re just bitter
* I’m so happy with my wife – isn’t she wonderful?
* You picked her!
* It’s your own fault.
None of these actually address that there might be something completely wrong with the courts and divorce. This ends up skewing marriage for the rest of us and both men and women lose.
Decent guys won’t marry because they don’t want to be screwed in divorce.
Women complain about not being able to find a decent guy who will marry.
It’s really something that needs to be addressed but, likely, won’t because of the reactions I mentioned above that end up just blowing it all off.
I think most/many of us guys would like to get married but it comes down to this: We don’t want to be stuck in a situation where she’s screwing the town and our only other option is to pay her to take our family away.
You’d never enter into a business contract like this: OK, Joe and I are going into business together and we have a contract but the contract doesn’t apply except to me and regardless of what happens I’m going to have to pay Joe for the next 20 years while he takes the business to another partner.
People would laugh at that. That’s effectively what the courts have allow marriage to perverse into.
#25: So, what you’re saying is that society should pay women more than men so when you get divorced you get your fair share instead?
#25, I really agree, and would only like to add one more to the list of reactions, that “you’re just extremely greedy” like from OhForTheLoveOf above.
#25 Right on. Most men should not get married at this point and time until the rules change. I have a woman who is the last of her breed, who actually thinks marriage is a partnership.
This is a place where rationality and legality collide. Is this ruling legal? Yes. Should a woman or man get $148 million in a divorce? My answer is not just no, but hell no. And the reason is that it encourages a sense of entitlement versus accomplishment.
The ERA movement was back in the 70s, and we now should have data on how many women millionaires have earned their money and how many have been awarded it through the courts. I haven’t seen the data yet, but my guess if for every Meg Whitman, there are ten women like this one. Feminism, equal rights for women, has morphed into feminazism, women are superior.
You have laws like VAWA, the violence against women act/law that don’t even attempt to hide their rampant feminazism. This is from Wikipedia,
“RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting) has issued a series of investigative reports on VAWA. These reports document widespread abuses in terms of male DV victims being treated as perpetrators[5], restraining orders issued with no claim of physical violence [6], persons are falsely accused and arrested [7], and constitutional protections are circumvented [8].”
Women filing restraining orders against men is so common a woman in New Mexico filed one against David Letterman for preventing her
from going asleep and a judge granted it.
Worse, men are never victims. Again from wikipedia, Women were slightly more likely than men to use physical aggression, especially among younger women. If a woman is abused, there are clinics, free attorneys, support groups etc. For men, if you were hit, it is fuck you, you probably deserved it. They don’t call it violence against women act for nothing.
From this blog, http://petepatriarch.blogspot.com/search?q=VAWA, comes this totally accurate statement: Did you know that your girlfriend could dial 911 and the police would take you to jail and give her a restraining order with no proof of violence against her? Even if you come in scratched and bleeding, yup.
Make sure to read this and get the real meaning of “feminism”,
http://petepatriarch.blogspot.com/
Tell your parents, church, girlfriend etc. that when VAWA is repealed, when women are prosecuted for false rape charges, perjury, and false abuse charges, you might think about getting married. But for now, tell them that you prefer to not have your hands in cuffs.
I got one of the last good women left and I am eternally thankfully for it. But I would never get married in today’s legal climate.
Are any of you poor bastards really in danger of having to pay 150 million dollars in a divorce settlement, leaving you with a paltry 150 million to your name?
If only I had a problem like that. I’d probably believe in God.
It makes you wonder how much the judge got. I’ll bet he’ll be retiring soon.