Hughes v. Hughes

560 A.2d 1145, 80 Md. App. 216, 1989 Md. App. LEXIS 157
CourtCourt of Special Appeals of Maryland
DecidedJuly 21, 1989
Docket1660, September Term, 1988
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 560 A.2d 1145 (Hughes v. Hughes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Special Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hughes v. Hughes, 560 A.2d 1145, 80 Md. App. 216, 1989 Md. App. LEXIS 157 (Md. Ct. App. 1989).

Opinion

BISHOP, Judge.

William G. Hughes (“William”) appeals from an order of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County (Weinstein, J.) which, among other things, awarded William an absolute divorce, and awarded the appellee, Patricia Ann Hughes *219 (“Patricia”): custody of the parties’ two minor children; child support in the amount of $700 per month; exclusive use and possession, for two years, of the family home and the personal property located therein; and a monetary award of $7,500. In this appeal, William asks:

I. Whether the court may grant a use and possession order for the family home when legal title to that residence was acquired by William before the marriage.

II. Whether the court erred in granting Patricia a $7,500 monetary award.

III. Whether the court erred in denying William’s request for joint custody of the children.

IV. Whether in awarding custody of the children the court imposed a “change of circumstances burden of proof” requirement on William and also assumed that custody should be with Patricia.

V. Whether the court imposed an unconscionable burden on William in the amount of child support ordered.

We answer each of these questions in Patricia’s favor and affirm the circuit court’s order; we also express our complete agreement with the well written opinion which Judge Weinstein filed in this case and upon which a large part of this opinion is based.

Before discussing the merits of this case we first address Patricia’s motion to dismiss the appeal; she complains that William failed to comply with Maryland Rule 8-501 which governs the printing of the record extract.

Rule 8-501(d) requires the appellant to include in the record extract those portions of the record agreed upon by the parties. In the event of a dispute the Rules allow the appellant either to demand advance payment from the appellee to cover the printing expenses for any part of the record that appellee insists be printed, Rule 8-501(d)(4) or to petition the Court, under Rule 8-607(b), to assess against appellee the costs for printing any unnecessary material. Despite these explicit detailed provisions, William’s counsel elected to pursue his own personal solution to what he *220 apparently perceived as approximately 200 “totally irrelevant” pages in the materials designated by Patricia for inclusion in the record extract. He took it upon himself unilaterally to exclude these materials from the printed extract.

Needless to say, we are not impressed by William's attempt to avoid the Rules by fashioning his own remedy to his perceived problem. Such freewheeling “impairs the ability of this Court to review the proceedings below.” Leaf Co. v. Montgomery County, 70 Md.App. 170, 172, 520 A.2d 732 (1987); see also Spivey v. Harris, 64 Md.App. 619, 498 A.2d 281 (1985). While Patricia has included the necessary portions of the text in her “Appendix”, this does not alleviate the confusion and imposition on the Court which has had to contend with the inconvenience of reading two record extracts instead of one (it also heightens the costs of litigation). Nevertheless, in the exercise of our discretion, we deny the motion to dismiss. 1 Leaf Company, 70 Md. App. at 173, 520 A.2d 732.

FACTS

The following findings of fact by the trial judge are supported by substantial and competent evidence in the record and, therefore, not “clearly erroneous,” Md.Rule 8-131(c).

*221 The parties were married on December 30, 1982____ Two children were born as a result of the marriage, Jacqueline Rose Hughes and Margaret Susan Hughes, twins born on September 6, 1983____ [William] is forty-four (44) years old and is employed by the National Association of Federal Veterinarians as an attorney. His net monthly income (after taxes) is three thousand dollars ($3,000)____ [Patricia] is thirty-nine (39) years old and is currently employed part time ..., sixteen hours per week at $10.00 an hour. (E 173-174)

In 1975, William purchased an unimproved parcel of land in Easton (the “Easton property”) for $37,500. He paid $4,000 in cash and financed the remainder with a purchase money mortgage with payments of $280.22 per month which payments were made continuously from 1975 through the trial date in December 1987. Subsequently, in the summer of 1982, construction began on a $100,000 home on the Easton property (the “Easton home”) which was financed in part by a loan of $48,000 from William’s mother. Monthly payments of $463.00 were made on this loan from January 1983 through the trial date and, although William’s mother ultimately forgave $20,000 of the principal, the amount of the payments remained constant since 1983. Both the Easton home and property were titled in William’s name alone.

The parties, along with their children, occupied the Easton home from the time of the children’s birth in 1983 until the parties separated in February 1986; at which time, in accordance with their agreements, Patricia remained in the Easton home with the twins and William moved into a $104,000 home which he purchased in Silver Spring. Except for a 3% month period, November 1986 — February 1987, this situation remained unchanged through the trial date.

I.

Use and Possession

Section 8-208 of the Family Law Article provides judicial authority to award possession and use of the “family *222 home.” There is, however, an express limitation in § 8-201(c)(2) which states, inter alia, that:

(2) “Family home” does not include property:
(i) acquired before the marriage;

(emphasis added). William contends that the Easton home and the Easton property were “acquired” before the marriage because “[t]he residence in question was titled in the name of, built by, and solely owned and occupied by the plaintiff [ (William) ] before the marriage.” He concludes, therefore, that, under § 8-201(c)(2), the Easton home and property are not the proper subject of a use and possession order.

Patricia counters that the Court’s previous definition of the term “acquired”, as stated in Harper v. Harper, 294 Md. 54, 80, 448 A.2d 916 (1982); see also Grant v. Zich, 300 Md. 256, 477 A.2d 1163 (1984); Schweizer v. Schweizer, 301 Md. 626, 484 A.2d 267 (1984), controls; in Harper the Court stated that the term “ ‘acquired’, appearing in [§ 8-201(e) 2

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Bluebook (online)
560 A.2d 1145, 80 Md. App. 216, 1989 Md. App. LEXIS 157, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hughes-v-hughes-mdctspecapp-1989.