In the Matter of Marriage of Cook

248 P.3d 420, 240 Or. App. 1
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedDecember 29, 2010
DocketDR06120843 A137259
StatusPublished

This text of 248 P.3d 420 (In the Matter of Marriage of Cook) 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 the Matter of Marriage of Cook, 248 P.3d 420, 240 Or. App. 1 (Or. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

248 P.3d 420 (2010)
240 Or. App. 1

In the Matter of the MARRIAGE OF Cheryl Christine COOK, Petitioner-Respondent, and
Robert Dale Cook, Respondent-Appellant.

DR06120843; A137259.

Court of Appeals of Oregon.

Argued and Submitted February 3, 2010.
Decided December 29, 2010.

*421 Mark Johnson, Portland, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs was Johnson & Lechman-Su PC.

Peter Bunch, Portland, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Zimmer & Bunch LLC.

Before SCHUMAN, Presiding Judge, and BREWER, Chief Judge, and ORTEGA, Judge.[*]

BREWER, C.J.

Husband appeals from a judgment of unlimited separation, assigning error to the property division and spousal support awards that the trial court made. On de novo review, ORS 19.415(3) (2007), we modify the property division and otherwise affirm.

The parties began living together in 1993, were married in 1995, and separated in 2005. Wife filed a petition for unlimited separation in August 2006, at which time she also obtained and served on husband a restraining order that enjoined the parties from encumbering *422 or disposing of their assets during the pendency of the action. The trial court entered the judgment of unlimited separation from which husband appealed in 2007.

Husband was 69 years old when the judgment was entered, and wife was 60. The parties have no joint children. Husband is a surgeon, who earned more than $300,000 per year, working 30 hours per week. Husband was in good health at the time of trial and had no plans to retire. Wife, who has a high school education, had previous work experience as an athletic club assistant; during the marriage, she worked as husband's office assistant, earning about $21,000 per year. Wife also performed a homemaker role throughout the marriage. Wife brought about $50,000 to the relationship; she used $30,000 to help husband with a business venture, and the parties used $20,000 for living expenses.

At the time of trial, the parties owned a home worth approximately $1,500,000 that was located on 7.3 acres in a gated community. The parties regularly went on vacations, held expensive parties in their home, and generally enjoyed a lifestyle without material wants. Husband acquired the residence with his former spouse in 1969. Husband's marriage to his former spouse was dissolved in 1994. The dissolution judgment provided that those parties would own the property as tenants in common and that they would forthwith list the property for sale and equally divide any net sale proceeds. After husband and wife were married, to settle litigation with his former spouse, husband purchased his former spouse's interest in the property for $390,000. Husband used his retirement funds and the proceeds of a refinanced loan on the property to fund the buyout.

Husband jointly conveyed the property to himself and wife in 1998. The parties refinanced the property twice during the marriage, the first time to reduce the mortgage interest rate and the second time to obtain funds to remodel the property. After they separated, the parties refinanced the property a third time to pay their credit card debts and automobile loans. The parties learned in 2004 that they had a potential Measure 37 (now Measure 49) claim that might permit the creation of three additional buildable parcels out of the property. Wife took the lead in overseeing the Measure 37 claim. Based on her work with realtors and developers, wife testified—and husband agreed in his list of assets and liabilities and proposed distribution—that the gross value of a successful claim would be $2,070,000. The parties also stipulated that, excluding the value of the Measure 37 claim, the residence and real property had a gross value of $1,505,000, that the mortgage balance was $1,128,750, and that their net equity in the property was $376,250.

The trial court ordered the sale of the property, including any further created lots, and the equal division of the net proceeds of sale after the Measure 37 claim is finally adjudicated. In deciding that husband's premarital interest in the property should be equally divided between the parties, the trial court found that "[husband] did not state that he had any intention to keep it as separate property."

Husband owned retirement accounts at the time of the marriage, but the premarital value of those accounts was both hotly contested and unclear at the time of trial. In particular, the trial court found:

"[Husband] produced very little in discovery to document his retirement assets. The day before trial he produced a document that represented that he had $2.7 million in his retirement accounts at the time of his marriage, but the documents were generated with his corporation as the producer, with no headings, no bank, no management company, no Fund, no way to verify these were not printed on his home or office computer, and not produced in a timely manner to allow verification. Since these were employee reports generated under his control (at best), I cannot rely on them. If they had been produced in a timely manner to allow for the rigors of examination by opposing counsel I might look differently upon them. Since they were not, I find that they are unreliable and that husband's entire retirement funds are marital property subject to `just and proper' distribution.
*423 "If husband is able to use all of loss carryovers on the [M]easure 37 property then I find it to be just and proper to award all of what is left in these accounts to husband. If the carryovers are not useable then these accounts will be divided equally (by [qualified domestic relations order] if necessary with each paying one-half of the cost.)"

What is clear is that the value of the retirement accounts steadily shrank during the marriage, as husband regularly invaded it for various purposes, including paying obligations to his former spouse, supporting the parties' lifestyle and, after their separation, acquiring a new residence (the Johnson Road property) for himself and his new partner. The parties agreed that the total remaining value of those accounts at the time of trial was $135,893.

While the separation action was pending, husband used $46,500 in retirement funds to purchase and improve the Johnson Road property. With respect to that property, the trial court found:

"Husband bought this property in violation of the restraining order in this case. He bought it with withdrawals from his retirement and from a new line of credit he set up, again in violation of the restraining order. Since I find below that the retirement accounts are marital property, this asset is in and will be considered under the `just and proper' umbrella. Since this property was bought for his new partner and since the origin of the assets liquidated to buy it were his originally and since there is very little equity in this beyond the $20,000 he paid down and the $26,500 he paid for improvements I award this to him at a value of $46,500."

The trial court also included the value of husband's incorporated medical practice in the property division, which wife's expert testified was worth $334,313.

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Related

In Re Marriage of Kunze
92 P.3d 100 (Oregon Supreme Court, 2004)
Matter of Marriage of Massee
970 P.2d 1203 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1999)
Matter of Marriage of Pierson
653 P.2d 1258 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1982)
Stronach v. Ellingsen
814 P.2d 175 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 1991)
In the Matter of Marriage of Cook
248 P.3d 420 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2010)
Matter of Marriage of Tsukamaki
112 P.3d 416 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2005)
In re the Marriage of Tomos
995 P.2d 576 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2000)

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Bluebook (online)
248 P.3d 420, 240 Or. App. 1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-the-matter-of-marriage-of-cook-orctapp-2010.