Marriage of Bui

Colorado Court of Appeals·Decided August 13, 2026·No. 25CA0906·Unpublished

Opinion

25CA0906 Marriage of Bui 08-13-2026 COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 25CA0906 Jefferson County District Court No. 24DR30846 Honorable Chantel Contiguglia, Judge

In re the Marriage of Phuong Nancy Thi Bui, Appellee, and Lewis Bui, Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED IN PART AND REVERSED IN PART, AND CASE REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS

Division II

Opinion by JUDGE BROWN

Tow, C.J., and Harris, J., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)

Announced August 13, 2026

Law Offices of Joel M Pratt, Joel M. Pratt, Colorado Springs, Colorado, for Appellee

Aitken Law, LLC, Sharlene J. Aitken, Denver, Colorado, for Appellant

¶1 In this dissolution of marriage case involving Lewis Bui (husband) and Phuong Nancy Thi Bui (wife), husband appeals the portions of the district court’s permanent orders concerning the division of marital property, spousal maintenance, and child support. Husband contends that the district court erred by overvaluing portions of the marital estate in a manner that unfairly benefited wife and incorrectly determining husband’s income for purposes of maintenance and child support. We affirm the court’s division of marital property but reverse its determination of husband’s income and the related maintenance and child support orders. We remand the case for further proceedings.

I. Background

¶2 Husband and wife were married in 2008 and have two children. Wife petitioned for dissolution of marriage in July 2024.

¶3 During the marriage, husband worked 120 hours per month as an emergency medicine physician at HCA Houston. He also worked at various other hospitals, receiving income as a contract employee. In addition to the practice of medicine, husband pursued other business ventures, including the formation of Hue

Health Inc., a company selling some type of health insurance product. Husband owned a sixty-five percent stake in Hue Health.

¶4 In December 2024, the parties jointly obtained an expert, Shannon Domaille, to determine husband’s income and the value of husband’s companies. To complete her valuation of Hue Health, Domaille requested that husband produce various financial documents. Husband told Domaille that he was not involved in the company’s day-to-day operations and directed Domaille to his business partner, Jake Kerr, for the requested documents. When Domaille contacted Kerr, Kerr was initially unresponsive, but he ultimately replied — seven days after the twice-extended deadline for Domaille’s report — that he could not provide Domaille with the requested documents until she signed a nondisclosure agreement. Domaille never received the information she needed to value Hue Health and was unable to complete her report for the parties.

¶5 At a discovery hearing to address husband’s failure to disclose information, the district court determined that Domaille should complete her valuation of Hue Health from whatever information she was able to obtain. It also sanctioned husband for his nondisclosures, indicating that it would apply an adverse inference

regarding the value of Hue Health and preclude husband from testifying concerning any financial documents that remained undisclosed by the date of the permanent orders hearing the following month.

¶6 Because of the lack of disclosures, Domaille conducted independent research to value Hue Health. She discovered that Hue Health had received approximately $700,000 from investors, incurred debts from the creation and marketization of a healthcare insurance product, and entered into a contract with Huerfano County to serve as its health insurance provider for an estimated value of $1.3 million per year.

¶7 In March 2025, the court held a permanent orders hearing to resolve the parties’ financial matters, as the parties had already reached an agreement concerning parenting time and decision-making. As relevant to husband’s appeal, the disputes at the permanent orders hearing included the value of Hue Health, husband’s dissipation of marital assets, and husband’s income.

¶8 At the hearing, based on Domaille’s independent research into the value of Hue Health, wife contended that husband’s interest in the company should be valued at $1,282,872. For his part,

husband argued that it would be inequitable for the court to adopt wife’s valuation and that his interest in Hue Health should be valued at $325 because the company had not made any revenue.

¶9 Wife also provided evidence that husband had dissipated $122,817 in marital funds and asked that the court place the value of the dissipated assets in husband’s column on the property spreadsheet. Specifically, wife argued that husband spent $89,479 on vacations and expensive gifts for his new romantic interest and $33,3381 on a property located on Vispo Way in Broomfield. Husband disputed that his purchase of the Vispo Way property amounted to dissipation because the home was a marital asset, and he denied that any of his other spending had significantly dissipated marital funds.

¶ 10 Finally, concerning husband’s income for purposes of maintenance and child support, wife argued that husband failed to disclose what income he received from his contract work with various hospitals and that, in light of husband’s nondisclosures,

1 The fact that husband spent $33,338 on the Vispo Way property

appears undisputed, but it is unclear from the record how that money was spent — as a down payment or as some other propertyrelated expense.

the court should draw an adverse inference and find that husband earns at least $29,970 per month, a figure similar to what Domaille determined husband had earned in 2024. Husband contended that his work for HCA Houston was considered full-time employment, so the court should calculate his income for the purposes of determining maintenance and child support obligations based on that income alone. Specifically, he argued that any income derived from additional jobs he works beyond his full-time employment, which he did not intend to continue once he no longer had to pay litigation costs, should not be included in his income.

¶ 11 After the hearing, the court entered oral and written permanent orders dividing the marital estate and awarding wife maintenance and child support. As relevant to husband’s appeal, the court ruled that (1) husband’s interest in Hue Health was worth $1,282,872; (2) husband had “substantially dissipated the marital estate in the amount of at least $122,817”; and (3) husband’s monthly income was $29,757. Husband appeals.

II. Division of Marital Property

¶ 12 Husband contends that the district court erred by (1) overvaluing Hue Health and (2) determining that husband

dissipated $122,817 in marital assets. We discern no basis to reverse the property division.

A. Applicable Law and Standard of Review

¶ 13 The Uniform Dissolution of Marriage Act governs a district court’s division of marital property. In re Marriage of Balanson, 25 P.3d 28, 35 (Colo. 2001); § 14-10-113, C.R.S. 2025. The court must first determine whether an asset or debt is marital and subject to division or separate and shielded from division. In re Marriage of Jorgenson, 143 P.3d 1169, 1171-72 (Colo. App. 2006) (The “[a]llocation of marital debts is in the nature of property division.”). Once an asset or debt has been deemed to be marital, the court must value it. Id. at 1172; Balanson, 25 P.3d at 36. The court “has discretion to choose the property valuation of one party over that of the other or to make its own reasonable determination of value, and such determination will be upheld unless clearly erroneous.” In re Marriage of Page, 70 P.3d 579, 582-83 (Colo. App. 2003); see Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. v. Guarantee Co. of N. Am. USA, 2019 COA 44, ¶ 36 (“A factual finding is clearly erroneous if nothing in the record supports it.”).

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