In re Marriage of Tompkins

Summary

Case Summary: In re Marriage of Tompkins - this article addresses Illinois family law, not cybersecurity — I've framed the opening around its data-disclosure angle, the closest available hook. The costliest exposure in a high-income divorce isn't a breached inbox but an undisclosed one — RSUs, carried interest, and K-1 distributions quietly restructuring a payor's income while the ex-spouse's settlement formula silently absorbs every dollar of it. In In re Marriage of Tompkins, Illinois's appellate court affirmed dismissal of a maintenance-modification petition at the pleading stage, holding that a payor's leap from self-employment to a lucrative salaried role was no "substantial change" when the agreement's tiered true-up already contemplated it — a warning that these cases are won in the drafting and in airtight disclosure and audit protocols, not in post-decree litigation.

The opposing counsel is already on the back foot. If your maintenance modification petition reads like a mood board — vague references to a payor's "explosive" new income, a bruised lifestyle, some new medical bills — you have handed the other side a motion to dismiss they can draft over coffee. The judge already knows what a real change in circumstances looks like. It does not look like the payor finally succeeding at exactly the thing your settlement agreement was built to capture.

A recent Illinois appellate decision, In re Marriage of Tompkins, drives that point home with unusual clarity. The former wife moved to modify maintenance. The trial court dismissed her petition on the pleadings. The appellate court affirmed. No trial. No evidentiary hearing. No discovery fishing expedition into the payor's new employer's compensation structure. The petition died at the pleading stage because it never alleged facts that added up to a substantial change in circumstances under 750 ILCS 5/510(a-5).

Practitioners should confirm the current citation and publication status of any recent disposition before relying on it in a brief. The doctrine, however, is not new — and it is exactly where high-income maintenance fights are won and lost.

The Core Holding: If the Agreement Contemplated It, It Is Not a "Change"

The marital settlement agreement in that case was not a one-line maintenance clause. It was an engineered instrument: a fixed monthly "draw" paired with an annual reconciliation — a true-up — calculated against defined tiers of the payor's income, with the percentage stepping down as income rose and cutting off entirely above a stated ceiling. Critically, the definition of income expressly reached W-2 wages, 1099 compensation, and Schedule K-1 distributions.

Then the payor did the predictable thing. He moved from self-employment to a salaried role and his income multiplied.

The payee framed that as a seismic shift. The court framed it as Tuesday. When your agreement defines income to include wages, independent contractor payments, and partnership distributions, you have already told the court you anticipated a change in the form of the payor's compensation. When your agreement builds a graduated formula with tiers and a cap, you have already told the court you anticipated changes in the amount. A contingency the parties bargained around is not a substantial change in circumstances. It is performance of the contract.

That is the discipline of section 510(a-5). Modification is not an invitation to relitigate a deal you now find unfashionable.

Increased Payor Income Is Not a Standalone Ticket

Here is the mistake that sinks otherwise sympathetic petitions: treating the payor's income growth as self-executing proof of entitlement. Illinois maintenance analysis has always run through need and ability to pay, measured against the standard of living established during the marriage. A payor's raise is relevant. It is not dispositive.

The petition in Tompkins also pointed to voluntarily trimmed lifestyle expenses — streaming services, vacations, a health club, vehicles — and additional annual medical costs. Those facts could matter. They did not, because the pleading never connected them to an unmet financial need. Nowhere did it allege that the maintenance being paid was insufficient to cover reasonable expenses. Cutting back voluntarily out of caution is not the same as being unable to afford your life.

Then came the fatal ask: the payee requested the agreement's maximum annual figure regardless of the formula, plus a "simplified" calculation going forward. Translated: rewrite the deal because administering it is inconvenient. Courts modify maintenance. They do not redraft settlement agreements because one party finds the arithmetic tedious.

The Procedural Lesson: Section 2-615 Is a Weapon, Not a Formality

The payor filed a combined motion under sections 2-615 and 2-619 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The 2-615 attack — legal insufficiency of the pleading — carried the day, with prejudice.

Absorb what that means strategically. A well-built 2-615 motion ends the case before the payor produces a single compensation statement, before a deposition, before a forensic accountant gets near the K-1s. In high-net-worth matters, discovery is the leverage. Killing a petition at the pleading stage denies the other side the leverage entirely.

For petitioners, invert that lesson. Plead facts, not adjectives. Specifically:

• Identify the change with dates and specifics — what changed, when, and why it falls outside what the agreement anticipated.
• Plead a budget, not a feeling. Reasonable expense categories, current maintenance received, and the resulting shortfall. Need must appear on the face of the pleading.
• Plead causation. Medical costs matter when you allege they exceed what maintenance and available resources can absorb. Say so.
• Distinguish voluntary austerity from involuntary hardship. If you tightened your belt by choice, explain why the alternative was insolvency.
• Ask for a modification, not a rewrite. Requests that override the agreed methodology invite dismissal and signal you know your facts are thin.

One more note from the record in that case: the trial court's oral and written rulings on the 2-619 branch did not line up. Sloppy orders create appellate mischief. Draft the order yourself. Make it match what the judge actually said. Control the record or someone else will.

Drafting Is Where This Case Is Actually Decided

By the time a modification petition is filed, the outcome is largely baked in by the agreement. That is the uncomfortable truth for both sides.

If you represent the payor

Build contemplation into the document. Define income expansively — wages, bonuses, self-employment income, partnership and S-corporation distributions, deferred compensation, equity awards on vesting or exercise. Establish tiers with declining percentages and a hard ceiling. State expressly that the parties contemplated changes in employment structure, employer, and income level. Every one of those provisions becomes a dismissal argument later.

If you represent the payee

Recognize the trap. A formula that flatters you at today's income can foreclose you at tomorrow's. Negotiate for review triggers, floors that survive income volatility, defined treatment of non-cash and deferred compensation, annual disclosure obligations with teeth, and — where appropriate — carve-outs preserving the right to seek modification on specified events. Silence favors whoever drafted the machinery.

Both sides

Insist on an administration protocol. Who calculates the true-up. What documents are exchanged and by when. What happens on a shortfall, an overpayment, or a late disclosure. What the audit rights are. Ambiguity here does not create flexibility; it creates litigation, and litigation is expensive precisely when the other side has the better paper.

The Tech Layer: Where Modern Income Actually Hides

Compensation in Chicago's finance, technology, and professional-services markets has migrated off the paycheck. Restricted stock units, performance units, carried interest, deferred plans, phantom equity, distributions timed for tax convenience — a formula pegged to a naïve concept of "income" will fail the moment sophisticated compensation shows up.

That reality drives both drafting and discovery. Modern financial discovery is a data exercise: plan documents, grant agreements

Full Opinion (PDF): Download the full opinion

Written by Jonathan D. Steele

Chicago divorce attorney with cybersecurity certifications (Security+, ISC2 CC, Google Cybersecurity Professional Certificate). Illinois Super Lawyers Rising Star 2016-2025.

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