HIDDEN COSTS OF DIVORCE
June 13, 2011 § 4 Comments
John and Marsha have decided that they are tired of living in their own, personal soap opera, and they have agreed to an irreconcilable differences divorce. It looks pretty simple:
Marsha will get the former marital residence. It’s paid for and Marsha intends to stay there. The house sustained some damage in a wind storm a couple of years ago, and the parties got $10,000 for repairs from insurance, but they spent it on a Hawaiian vacation, with a few days in Vegas on the way out, in an unsuccessful attempt at refreshing their marriage. Marsha says she can get the repairs done or not because they don’t affect its habitability. The roof needs replacing, but it’s been patched and doesn’t leak. She says she’ll fix it if and when it leaks or when she sells the house, but she does not have the $6,000 it will cost right now.
The parties own two adjoining commercial lots worth about $15,000 each. Marsha has agreed to take the lot they purchased in John’s name in 1990 for $1,500 before Wal-Mart located down the street. John will get the jointly-titled lot they purchased for $12,500 several years ago. A car lot is expanding and has expressed an interest. Marsha would like to settle the divorce as soon as possible so as to cash in. Marsha owes $14,000 on her credit cards, and she’s behind in her payments, so she needs as much cash as she can get out of sale of the lot.
The parties will split the 1,000 shares of Wal-Mart stock that they accumulated through the years. Marsha really doesn’t know much about stock, so John has generously agreed to divide the shares.
Marsha has enjoyed driving the 2008 Jaguar that John bought her several years ago in an attempt to make up after she caught him in a questionable situation with a waitress from the Waffle House. The car is paid for, and Marsha loves it because she has never had a nice car before. She will get it in the divorce.
John has agreed to pay Marsha $1,000 a month in rehabilitative alimony for 36 months. Even with the alimony, it will be a tight squeeze financially for Marsha, so she doesn’t need any unpleasant financial surprises after the divorce is final.
Marsha is in a hurry. She wants you to do up the papers and she will pick them up to go over with John tomorrow, so she can get them filed right away.
It’ll be a snap to prep the PSA, and you are tempted to just hand the notes over to your secretary so they can be done while you hit the golf course.
Before you jump on this, though, ask yourself whether Marsha will really be getting what she thinks she is bargaining for. Consider:
- The divorce will be a transaction effecting a change of ownership in the former marital residence, triggering a re-rating of the homeowner’s insurance. Because the hurricane repairs have never been done and approved by the insurance company, Marsha’s homeowner’s insurance premium is likely to skyrocket. Not only that, but there are other factors that can adversely affect Marsha’s insurance premium, including her credit rating, which is questionable due to the credit cards. In order to get her homeowner’s insurance premium back with a reasonable range, she will have to spend that $6,000 on the roof and complete the other repairs. How can she find out in advance whether she will have a problem? Marsha can get a free insurance C.L.U.E. (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange) report by writing CLUE, Inc. Consumer Disclosure Center, P. O. Box 105295, Atlanta, GA, 30348-5295, or by calling 1-866-312-8076. An insurance agent can help her decipher the report. And, as you probably know, she can get a free credit report once a year.
- When the commercial lots are sold, Marsha will be paying capital gains taxes, currenty 15%, on $13,500. John will be paying capital gains on just $2,500. Marsha’s tax bite will be $2,025, leaving her $12,975. John’s taxes will be a mere $375, allowing him to pocket $14,625, or $1,650 more than Marsha.
- Also, has Marsha gotten a title opinion on the commercial lot titled in John’s name? It would be a bitter pill indeed to discover when she goes to sell it that John borrowed money against it without her knowledge.
- The stock has the same pitfall as the commercial lots. Stock purchased for $25 a share years ago will carry a much heftier capital gains burden than will the shares purchased for $65 a few years ago. Moreover, John can allocate himself the shares that have sustained losses in the recent downturn. Yet the parties are treating all the shares the same, and, to make it worse, John will call the shots.
- As for her ride, Marsha needs to look at it as a cash drain. How much is she willing to let it drain her? The insurance alone is more than $1,500 a year, and this year’s tag, which is now due, is $862. Not only that, it uses exclusively premium gas, and has never gotten the 21 miles to the gallon that the dealer promised. Yes, it is paid for, but would she do better selling it and taking the cash to buy something more economical? Can she even afford this car?
- Finally, the alimony is taxable income to Marsha unless the parties agree that it will not be taxable. John will not likely agree due to the fact that he will get to claim it as a deduction. Is Marsha aware of this? Can you negotiate an extra $300 or so a month for Marsha to use to pay her income taxes?
You can do the papers exactly as Marsha dictated, or you can sit her down and bring all these matters to her attention. It’s the difference between acting as Marsha’s clerk-typist and acting as her lawyer. You get to decide.
UPDATED CHECKLIST OF CHECKLISTS
May 27, 2011 § 5 Comments
Proving your case by proving certain factors is a fact of legal life in Mississippi. I’ve referred to it as trial by checklist. If you’re not putting on proof of the factors when they apply in your case, you are wasting your and the court’s time, as well as your client’s money, and you are committing malpractice to boot.
Many lawyers have told me that they print out these checklists and use them at trial. I encourage you to copy these checklists and use them in your trial notebooks. And while you’re at it, you’re free to copy any post for your own personal use, but not for commercial use. Lawyers have told me that they are building notebooks tabbed with various subjects and inserting copies of my posts (along with other useful material, I imagine). Good. If it improves practice and makes your (and my) job easier and more effective, I’m all for it.
Here is an updated list of links to the checklists I’ve posted:
Doing an accounting in a probate matter.
Income tax dependency exemption.
Modification of child support.
PROVING THE VALUES OF VEHICLES
March 15, 2011 § Leave a comment
You’re the judge. Which values do you think will have more credibility:
- Financial statement 1 has the family vehicles valued by the party at $800 (the car he wants) and $35,000 (the car that he wants the other party to have), unsupported by any authority; and
- Financial statement 2 that has Kelly Blue Book or NADA printouts from the internet showing values of $12,000 and $16,500?
Financial statement 2 will win the credibility battle every time.
When you are doing your responses to discovery, go to the Kelly Blue Book site or the N.A.D.A. site and enter the make, year model, mileage, condition and options for your client’s car. Use the “Used Car – Private Sale” figures, and print out the results. Include the printout with your discovery response as an attachment to the Rule 8.05 financial statement or in any other appropriate place. Then, when you are preparing for trial, make sure the printout is attached to the financial statement you are going to offer into evidence.
FIVE MORE TIPS FOR MORE EFFECTIVE RULE 8.05 FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
March 14, 2011 § 9 Comments
I posted here ten tips for more effective financial statements.
Here are a handful more to use in your quest for financial statement perfection:
- Number the pages. It saves the fumbling around as the witness and the court are trying to orient themselves to your questioning. And use the page numbers in questioning the witness: “Ms. Smith, look with me at page 3, line 6.” That’s a lot clearer and easier for a witness to follow than asking “Now you say you spend $200 a month on clothes for yourself; how did you come up with that?”
- Add or delete categories to meet your needs. Your client spends $65 a month buying yarn and other materials to feed her knitting habit. Why not replace an unused catergory like “Transportation (other than automobile)” with “Hobby Expenses.” It would be a whole lot clearer than lumping it in with household expenses or something else, and will make it easier for your nervous client to understand while testifying.
- Don’t list a deduction as “mandatory” when it is not. Deductions required by law, such as taxes and social security are excluded from adjusted gross income for calculation of child support. Voluntary contributions, such as 401(k) deductions, health insurance premiums, and the like are not excluded from income. When you list voluntary deductions as “mandatory,” you are at worst planting false information in the record, and at best confusing the record. Your client does not know the distinction. This is part of practicing law: advising your client how to properly fill out his or her 8.05.
- Attach a current pay stub. Pay stubs are a marvelous source of information. Quite often clients (and attorneys, I am sad to report) miscalculate income. A current pay stub, preferably with year-to-date (YTD) info is a great tool to check the income figures. Pay stubs also show the true amounts of overtime, bonuses, deductions for insurance and other items, andd retirement contributions.
- Tailor your 8.05 to the case you are trying. In a divorce case, you can have one column of figures showing your client’s current expenses, one showing the household expenses before the separation (to show standard of living), and a third column showing her anticipated expenses following the divorce. In a modification case, add a column on both the income and expense side showing what your client’s income and expenses were at the time of the judgment you are seeking to modify.
Of all the documents you admit into evidence at trial, the 8.05 is the one that the judge will study the closest and spend the most time poring over. Make it a workhorse for your case.
SHOW ME THE MONEY!
March 10, 2011 § 2 Comments
As a judge I can tell you it’s hard to capture every detail in my trial notes. Sometimes the witness just speaks so fast that I stay three sentences behind, trying to catch up, and just can’t get it all. Sometimes the significance isn’t clear until much later in the trial or even when the judge is writing the opinion, and then it’s too late. Sometimes a verbose witness will bury the critical info under an avalanche of mostly meaningless words.
Next time you have an equitable distribution case, why don’t you sit down with your client during your trial preparation and work up a spreadsheet that shows how she wants the marital estate divided. You already have it in part with the joint property list that is included in the pre-trial order. Why not just rearrange all those assets into the manner that your client wants them divided. Once she identifies it, offer it into evidence, and the judge has the graphic depiction of how your client wants the case to go rather than just a gob of words. Instead of devoting your time (and the judge’s wayward attention) to a painstaking item-by-item approach, you can zero in on how your client justifies a greater share of the marital estate, and concentrate on the several important items she just has to have. With the preparation of a simple document you will have sharpened the focus of your case and made it more efficiently compact at the same time.
Or, if your client wants the financial assets divided a certain way, you can show the division he wants AND add a column with reduced values for tax penalties, etc., assuming you have that proof in the record.
Or, if your client has a claim for reimbursement of medical bills, why not create a table or spreadsheet itemizing all the charges, showing dates, providers, amounts charged, amount paid by insurance, and balance, with totals.
Or, if your client wants specific visitation, why not spell it all out in a proposed schedule.
Here’s how you get them in:
You: Let me show you a document and ask you what it is.
Witness: It’s a table showing [my proposal to divide the marital estate/the financial assets and how I want them divided/a summary of the medical bills/my visitation proposal].
You: Does this table accurately reflect the [marital assets/financial assets] that are already in evidence? Or: Is this the schedule you wish the judge to adopt?
Witness: Yes.
You: Now, let me ask you a few questions about this …
When you put all those words into an exhibit, you are saving the judge all the work of trying to make notes of them at trial, and you are making sure that everything you want to say won’t be missed by the judge. The judge will have a document to look at rather than having to ferret that information out of his sheaf of notes.
In other words, the easier you make it on the judge, the more probable it is that your client will be very happy with the outcome of the case and the job you did.
ANOTHER NAIL IN THE GOODWILL COFFIN
February 8, 2011 § 2 Comments
“Goodwill” is the term used in accounting to describe the “prudent value” of a business over and above that attributable to the value of its assets, such as its reputation with customers and the value of its brand. An example would be the value that Coca Cola’s planet-wide brand recognition adds to the company’s value over and above the value of its assets.
Ever since the landmark decision in Singley v. Singley, 846 So.2d 1004 (Miss. 2002), in which the supreme court reversed the court of appeals and held that goodwill is not to be considered in business valuations for divorce, the courts have wrestled with the breadth of that decision. Singley, which involved a dental practice (in Meridian), accurately reflects the way professional practices are valued by valuation experts, who consider that the value of a professional practice depends heavily on the participation in it of its principal, so that it has no goodwill. The question lingered, however, as to how the court would apply the no-goodwill concept in other business valuations.
It is beyond the scope of this post to analyze Singley’s progeny, the most notable of which are Watson v. Watson, 882 So.2d 95 (Miss. 2004), and Yelverton v. Yelverton, 961 So.2d 19 (Miss. 2007). If you’re going to handle any divorce cases involving a busines, you will have to acquaint yourself with those decisions.
This post address the latest pronouncement on goodwill, which comes in the case of Lewis v. Lewis, handed down by the supreme court on February 3, 2011.
Lewis, which was before the court on certiorari from the court of appeals, involved valuation of a business enterprise jointly owned by the divorcing husband and wife to develop residential real estate. The court of appeals had reversed and remanded for the chancellor to correct errors in the valuation of the business. On cert, the supreme court, by Justice Randolph, upheld the court of appeals’ reversal and remand in part, but reversed the court of appeals to add that the trial court was precluded from considering goodwill in its analysis of the valuation.
In a cogent dissent, Justice Kitchens pointed out that Singley and the cases following it had correctly appled the exclusion of goodwill to the professional practices involved in those cases. The business in Lewis, however, was not a professional practice. Kitchens urged the court to recognize that Singley should be limited to solo professional practices or businesses that are closely analogous.
Justice Randolph referred sympathetically to Justice Kitchens’ dissent, pointing out that he had raised similar concerns in his own dissent in Watson to no avail. He pointed out that, if Singley lacked clarity on the point, the court’s decisions in Watson and Yelverton laid aside any doubt, and that goodwill is not to be considered. He went on to say that “Stare decisis demands this result.” Waller, Carlson and Graves joined Randolph in the opinion. Lamar and Chandler concurred. Only Kitchens dissented. Pierce did not participate.
Our appellate courts have not been presented with a business valuation involving nationally or even regionally recognized business entities based in Mississippi on a par with companies such as Viking, or Mississippi Chemical, or Structural Steel or Yates Construction. In such a case, it would be difficult to understand how the court could overlook “enterprise goodwill” as opposed to the “personal goodwill” in the precedent to this point. Yet our case law now is that any form of goodwill is to be ignored in valuing businesses in divorces.
THE FAMILY USE DOCTRINE IS ALIVE AND WELL
January 18, 2011 § 3 Comments
It is well settled in our jurisprudence that a gift to or inheritance by one of the parties during the marriage is separate property unless it loses its separate character through some act of the parties. Title, for instance, may be changed from individual to joint. Or separate funds may be commingled to the extent that they lose their separate character. Or there may be investment of marital assets in the separate property so that the marital estate has a substantial stake in it.
In 2000, the concept of the “family use doctrine” made its appearance in Mississippi in the case of Brame v. Brame, 98-CA-00502-COA, ¶20 (Miss. App. 2000), in which the husband’s clock, piano and dining set, all of which had been gifted to him took on a “new personna [sic] of full family use,” and was converted from separate into marital property.
In Rhodes v. Rhodes, decided by the court of appeals on January 11, 2011, the court found that a Florida vacation home purchased by the husband three years before the marriage was converted into marital property under the family use doctrine based on the facts that: the wife engaged in “extensive efforts” in the property’s upkeep and maintenance; the wife “undertook efforts” to improve the property; the wife decorated the home on her own; the husband made payments on the home from his earnings through the marriage; the wife made contributions through deposits into a joint checking account; the wife contributed housekeeping efforts to the home; the wife and “her family” regularly vacationed and spent holidays there; the wife lived there for a considerable time and considered it her second home; and she and her daughter used it as a residence for “several months” after Hurricane Katrina. Rhodes at ¶ 36. The court held that as a result of the combination of factors, “the vacation home lost its character” as separate property of the husband. Thus, as of January 2011, the family use doctrine is alive and well.
On the facts of this case, with the many factors apparently supported by the evidence, it’s hard to quibble with the outcome. Most practitioners and trial judges grasp without any difficulty the equitable principles involved in finding a conversion from separate to marital when there has been financial investment of marital money and/or “sweat equity” in the property.
What gives most of us at the trial level pause, though, is the concept that an item may be converted from separate to marital property simply because it is used in the marriage by the family.
If I were a lawyer whose client just inherited a mortgage-free beach home in Gulf Shores and was concerned about the future of his marriage, would I not be wise to advise him under our current law: to prohibit any use of the property by his wife and children; and to pay all taxes and expenses of the property from entirely separate funds and not from any current income. Or what if the wife inherits an antique Baldwin grand piano from her aunt, would she not be best advised to store it where neither the husband nor the children could touch it and possibly convert it into marital property, even though the daughter has considerable musical skills and would benefit from its use?
Assuming I am correct about the above advice, how in the world does such a policy promote what is best for the family as a whole? Policy and its consequences often have a strong influence on people’s actions. Is this one of those unintended consequences we’ve talked about here before?
A CHECKLIST OF CHECKLISTS
December 15, 2010 § Leave a comment
Proving your case by proving certain factors is a fact of legal life in Mississippi. I’ve referred to it as trial by checklist.
Here are the checklists I’ve posted (you can click on the links to get to them):
Modification of child support.
Periodic and rehabilitative alimony.
Income tax dependency exemption.
Those are all of the checklists of which I am aware. If you know of others, please let me know and I will add them to the list.
I also posted a checklist for closing an estate, but it’s a procedural cheklist rather than a substantive checklist.
SWEEPING DUSTBUNNIES
November 18, 2010 § 2 Comments
Have you ever noticed that mistakes and missteps seem to pile up in some cases despite your best efforts, just like those dustbunnies that pile up under that buffet in your dining room no matter how hard you try?
The case of Estate of Bellino v. Bellino, decided by the Court of Appeals on November 2, 2010, is one of those “dustbunny” cases, and it merits your attention. For ease of following this, we’ll mark the dustbunnies as they accrue with the international dustbunny symbol: ¤.
Stephen and Margaret Bellino were married in 1974. During the marriage, Stephen inherited $200,000 and opened a securities account with A. G. Edwards (AGE). In 1995, he and Margaret executed a joint account agreement declaring the account to be a joint tenancy with right of survivorship.
Alas, the marriage foundered, and the erstwhile blissful couple faced off in court. Their marriage ended May 2, 2006, with entry of a final judgment of divorce.
And that is when the discombobulating deluge of dustbunnies (¤) began to develop.
It seems that the divorce judgment made no mention of the AGE account. That would be the first ¤.
Stephen became aware of the problem when he tried to make a withdrawal and was refused by AGE, which took the position that it could not allow any withdrawals until the court addressed the ownership issue. Another ¤.
Stephen filed an MRCP Rule 59 motion to alter or amend the judgment to address the oversight. Only problem is that he waited until May 15, 2006. That would be a major ¤ because it was filed more than ten days after entry of the judgment, and so the motion was time-barred.
In all the hubbub surrounding the issue, Stephen never got around to changing ownership of the account. This is one of those ¤’s that spawns lots of other ¤’s.
Before the issue could be resolved by the judge, Stephen died on June 18, 2006. Regrettable as it is, this development was also a ¤.
Stephen’s estate was duly opened in July. There is no mention of the estate being substituted as a party in the divorce action under MRCP 25. Probably a ¤.
In November, the attorney for the estate approached the chancellor and, without any notice to Margaret or her attorneys, obtained an order directing AGE to pay the funds to the estate. No question this was a ¤.
To compound matters, the attorney for the estate never filed the order (or, it appears, any motion therefor) in either the estate or divorce file, and never served it on Margaret’s attorneys. That would be ¤ ¤ ¤.
They’re beginning to pile up, aren’t they?
The chancellor set aside the order (he was likely not happy with the way it had been handled) and eventually ruled that the account was Margaret’s. A ¤.
At this point the attorney for the estate realized that the dustbunnies were getting out of hand, so he started trying to sweep them up. The problem is that when you sweep dustbunnies it tends to scatter them and they seem to proliferate, which is exactly what they did.
The attorney for the estate filed an appeal. Now, this is really a dustbunny because the issues are fairly straightforward and not really in doubt. Score another ¤.
Right off the bat the court of appeals criticized the attorney for the estate for not filing a statement of issues after being asked not once but several time by the appellate court to do so. That would be another ¤ ¤ ¤. The court even thought about not considering his brief, which is, of course a ¤.
The court of appeals ruled that Margaret got the money because Stephen never changed the account and it was hers by survivorship. A predictable ¤.
Stephen’s estate will be stuck with the cost of cleaning up all these dustbunnies, and will have nothing to show for it. That’s a ¤ right there. In the alternative, the estate could insist that its attorney bear the cost of the appeal, which would be his own personal ¤.
So there you have it. Too many dustbunnies and before you know it you have a mess too big to clean up.
RULE 8.05, AMENDED
November 5, 2010 § Leave a comment
The Supreme Court yesterday entered an order amending Uniform Chancery Court Rule 8.05, in part. You can read the amended rule here.
In essence, the amended rule keeps in effect the financial statement with which we are all familiar, and adds a more detailed statement as an option to be used, “By agreement of the parties, or on motion and by order of the Court, or on the Court’s own motion … ”
Check out the more detailed form. There will likely be cases where it will be more suitable for your use than the original form.
The Better Chancery Practice Blog 