In Re the Marriage of Wolfe

273 P.3d 915, 248 Or. App. 582, 2012 WL 839178, 2012 Ore. App. LEXIS 274
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedMarch 14, 2012
Docket0630328; A139934
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 273 P.3d 915 (In Re the Marriage of Wolfe) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re the Marriage of Wolfe, 273 P.3d 915, 248 Or. App. 582, 2012 WL 839178, 2012 Ore. App. LEXIS 274 (Or. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

*584 HASELTON, P. J.

Wife appeals a general judgment of dissolution, contending that the trial court erred in (1) awarding husband his interest in a family trust and two investment accounts valued at $10.3 million as his separate property; 1 (2) setting the duration and amount of maintenance spousal support; and (3) denying her request for attorney fees before reviewing it. On de novo review, ORS 19.415(3) (2007), 2 we modify the trial court’s property division because, although husband rebutted the presumption of equal contribution with regard to the disputed property, it is just and proper for wife to receive an equalizing judgment of $2 million. Further, in light of our modification to the property award, we reject wife’s contentions concerning spousal support and vacate the trial court’s decision concerning attorney fees. Accordingly, we modify the judgment to award wife an equalizing judgment of $2 million and vacate and remand the attorney fee decision for reconsideration but otherwise affirm.

Although our review is de novo, we defer to the trial court’s express and implied credibility findings. Tomos and Tomos, 165 Or App 82, 87, 995 P2d 576 (2000). Here, husband contends that the trial court’s disposition of the disputed property was predicated on credibility findings and that, “[w]here Husband’s testimony differs from Wife’s on material issues, [we] should accept the trial court’s explicit and implicit findings that Husband’s account was more credible than Wife’s.” As we explained in Olson and Olson, 218 Or App 1, 3, 178 P3d 272 (2008), “[w]e take a cautious approach in that regard because, beyond its express findings, we cannot discern to what extent the trial court’s decision may have depended on implied findings of fact.” For that reason, “we defer only to credibility determinations that the trial court necessarily made in connection with its express findings of fact.” Id.

*585 This case involves a long-term marriage of over 30 years. At the time that the marriage was dissolved, husband was a 63-year-old ophthalmologist practicing in the Corvallis area, and wife was a 60-year-old homemaker and bookkeeper living in California. The parties have two adult children.

As general background, husband and wife met in 1974 while husband was completing his internship and wife, who was a nurse practitioner, was working at the same hospital. 3 After the parties married in 1975, husband completed his residency and fellowships, one of which took them to London for a little over a year. When the parties returned from London in 1980, they moved to Corvallis, where they lived until they separated in 2006.

Initially, husband worked for a clinic in Corvallis, and wife worked as a nurse practitioner for the county health department. In 1980, the parties purchased a farm, and, in 1982, about the time that their daughter was born, they moved into the home that they had recently built there. Although wife planned to continue working in her profession, by the time that the parties’ son was born in 1983, she chose to be a homemaker rather than to continue working as a nurse practitioner.

However, in addition to her homemaking responsibilities, wife also managed the parties’ farm, which was set up as a business so that they could contribute to an individual retirement account for wife. Specifically, wife explained:

“I was a full-time parent for these two children, I was also an accomplished seamstress so I upholstered our furniture, I made our window coverings, I painted, I wallpapered, I cooked, I cleaned, I carpooled. I was totally involved in all their activities, I was in charge of — volunteered in their schools, I was the after school enrichment coordinator at their schools, I was on all the boards and committees within their schools, followed all their activities. I was president of * * * the Benton County Medical Society Alliance which was supporting physicians and teaching health education in the community, I belonged to the Assistance League, *586 other philanthropic organizations.[ 4 ] We had as I said a 78 acre farm. We developed a herd of 22 cows and a bull, we had chickens and ducks, we had to grow and maintain hay, we had Christmas trees at one time which we did have a manager doing that and I oversaw him and the trees and the sale and the fertilizer and the grooming of those trees[.]”

Wife considered reentering the workforce in 1991. 5 However, when husband decided to leave the clinic and open his own medical practice, wife became directly involved in its operation. As wife explained,

“in the beginning I hired the help, I bought the supplies, I set up the bookkeeping, I conferred with the accountant about what I needed to do, I conferred with other people as far as what was necessary for a business as far as office policy manuals, what should be in it, what were the legal ramifications and necessity things. I then worked in the office and worked doing the bookkeeping and the payroll, * * * recruited, hired, trained, supervised the employees, developed a team approach with a mission statement so that * * * what we offered different from Costco or any of those other places was service, quality of service, so I worked with them very carefully to make sure that that was carried out, that we had a high standard of quality, and so interfaced with the community, going to small business meetings within the community to promote our institution and to learn how to do in the highest quality possible, and when our employees were sick or on vacation or getting married or some other thing then I actually physically was the nurse or was the front office person or helped fix broken glasses or took contact lens prescriptions, refills or whatever, did the pre-exam for my husband.”

Despite wife’s significant contributions to the ophthalmology practice, for many years, she did not draw a salary in order to, as husband noted, “better [their] tax situation.” Specifically, husband explained that, on the advice of the parties’ accountant, wife did not draw a salary so that the *587 parties would not have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes related to her work in the practice. That arrangement, in turn, maximized the amount of husband’s earnings that were ultimately deposited into joint accounts and used for family purposes. In other words, husband’s earnings effectively included wife’s compensation for her contributions to the ophthalmology practice. However, for a few years immediately preceding the parties’ separation in 2006 — after the tax laws had changed and the practice modified its retirement plan — wife drew enough salary to maximize her retirement contributions to that plan.

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Bluebook (online)
273 P.3d 915, 248 Or. App. 582, 2012 WL 839178, 2012 Ore. App. LEXIS 274, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-the-marriage-of-wolfe-orctapp-2012.