A divorcing wife's attempt to saddle her in-laws with alimony and child support to keep up her lifestyle is raising matrimonial lawyers' eyebrows.
Plaintiffs lawyer Patricia Barbarito is asking a Morris County, N.J., judge for leave to add as defendants the husband's parents, who assumed his mortgage and other expenses when he got too ill to work.
"If one understood the uniqueness of the facts and circumstances, I'm sure they'd agree with me that this is the logical approach," says Barbarito, of Denville, N.J.'s Einhorn, Harris, Ascher, Barbarito, Frost & Ironson.
But while Barbarito calls her third-party-liability theory a logical extension of existing case law, family lawyers reacting to it last week say it's at best a stretch -- and at worst the height of chutzpah.
Details here from the New Jersey Law Journal via Law.com.