Marriage of Harley

• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals
• Decided: January 22, 2026
• Docket: 24CA2115
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

24CA2115 Marriage of Harley 01-22-2026

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 24CA2115 El Paso County District Court No. 23DR2152 Honorable Chad Miller, Judge

In re the Marriage of

Darryl Tyrone Harley,

Appellant,

and

Michelle Annette Harley,

Appellee.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division VII Opinion by JUDGE GOMEZ Pawar and Martinez*, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced January 22, 2026

Law Office of Joel M. Pratt, Joel M. Pratt, Colorado Springs, Colorado, for Appellant

Michelle Annette Harley, Pro Se

*Sitting by assignment of the Chief Justice under provisions of Colo. Const. art. VI, § 5(3), and § 24-51-1105, C.R.S. 2025. ¶1 In this dissolution of marriage case between Darryl Tyrone

Harley (husband) and Michelle Annette Harley (wife), husband

appeals the portion of the district court’s permanent orders

concerning maintenance. We affirm the judgment.

I. Relevant Facts

¶2 The parties had been married over seven years when husband

petitioned to dissolve their marriage. Both parties represented

themselves during the case.

¶3 Wife filed a motion to compel husband to produce certain

mandatory disclosures under C.R.C.P. 16.2, including income

documentation and business financial statements, and the district

court granted her motion.

¶4 Later, the court held a permanent orders hearing and then

dissolved the parties’ marriage. During the hearing, wife testified

that she never received husband’s income documentation from

multiple sources, including the business he owned. As a part of its

permanent orders, the court drew a negative inference about

husband’s income based on his failure to disclose financial

information from his business and then awarded wife maintenance.

1 II. Maintenance

¶5 Husband challenges the sufficiency of the district court’s

findings regarding his income and its determination to award wife

maintenance. We reject both challenges.

A. Preservation

¶6 To begin, we reject wife’s argument that we shouldn’t consider

husband’s challenges because he didn’t object to the maintenance

award in the district court. While we generally won’t address an

argument raised for the first time on appeal, see In re Marriage of

Mack, 2022 CO 17, ¶ 12, “a party is not required to object to the

[district] court’s findings . . . to preserve a challenge to those

findings,” People in Interest of D.B., 2017 COA 139, ¶ 30. See

C.R.C.P. 52 (“Neither requests for findings nor objections to findings

rendered are necessary for purposes of review.”).

B. Standard of Review

¶7 A district court has broad discretion to determine the award of

maintenance, if any, that is fair and equitable to both spouses

based on the totality of the circumstances. In re Marriage of

Vittetoe, 2016 COA 71, ¶ 14; § 14-10-114(3)(e), C.R.S. 2025.

Absent an abuse of that discretion, we will not disturb the court’s

2 award. See In re Marriage of Medeiros, 2023 COA 42M, ¶ 58. A

court abuses its discretion when it acts in a manifestly arbitrary,

unfair, or unreasonable manner, or when it misapplies the law.

In re Marriage of Herold, 2021 COA 16, ¶ 5. However, we review de

novo whether the court correctly applied the law. Medeiros, ¶ 58.

C. Relevant Law

¶8 Section 14-10-114(3) sets forth the process a court must

follow when considering a maintenance request. In re Marriage of

Wright, 2020 COA 11, ¶ 13.

¶9 The court must first make findings on the amount of each

party’s gross income, the marital property apportioned to each

party, each party’s financial resources, the parties’ reasonable

financial need as established during the marriage, and the

taxability and tax deductibility of any maintenance payments.

§ 14-10-114(3)(a)(I); Herold, ¶ 25.

¶ 10 The court then must determine an amount and term of

maintenance, if any, that is fair and equitable by considering the

statutory advisory guidelines and a list of nonexclusive statutory

factors. § 14-10-114(3)(a)(II)(A)-(B), (3)(b), (3)(c); Wright, ¶ 15.

Those factors include the financial resources of the recipient and

3 payor spouse; the lifestyle during the marriage; the distribution of

marital property; both parties’ income, employment, and

employability; the duration of the marriage; and any other relevant

factor. § 14-10-114(3)(c)(I)-(V), (VII), (XIII). The court isn’t required

to make specific factual findings about each factor, so long as its

decision gives the reviewing court a clear understanding of the basis

of its order. Wright, ¶ 20.

¶ 11 Finally, the court must determine whether the requesting

spouse qualifies for maintenance, meaning that the spouse lacks

sufficient property, including awarded marital property, to provide

for their reasonable needs and is unable to support themself

through appropriate employment. See § 14-10-114(3)(a)(II)(C),

(3)(d); Wright, ¶ 16.

D. Discussion

1. Husband’s Income

¶ 12 Husband contends that the district court performed an

“insufficient analysis” to justify its finding about his income after

drawing the negative inference against him. We are not persuaded.

4 a. Procedural Background

¶ 13 The record shows that wife experienced difficulty in obtaining

personal and business financial information from husband. After

wife filed the motion to compel, the court ordered the parties to

exchange mandatory disclosures as required under C.R.C.P. 16.2

and C.R.C.P. Form 35.1. See C.R.C.P. 16.2(e)(1) (imposing an

affirmative duty on spouses in domestic relations cases to “disclose

all information that is material to the resolution of the case without

awaiting inquiry from the other [spouse]”); C.R.C.P. Form 35.1

(outlining mandatory disclosures, including personal and business

federal income tax returns for three years preceding the dissolution

petition; personal and business financial statements for the last

three years; and income documentation, such as pay stubs, for the

current and prior year). The court also advised that a party’s

failure to comply with their disclosure obligations may result in

sanctions, including “the drawing of a negative inference.” See

C.R.C.P. 16.2(e)(5), (j); Wright, ¶ 27 (a district court has

considerable discretion to impose appropriate sanctions if a party

fails to comply with C.R.C.P. 16.2’s provisions). Then, several

5 months before the permanent orders hearing, the court granted

wife’s motion to compel.

¶ 14 At a pretrial conference where only wife appeared, she

indicated that husband still hadn’t provided the required

disclosures and that his failure to do so was impeding her ability to

provide the court with accurate financial information. She also

asked the court to draw a negative inference against husband due

to his lack of disclosures. The court didn’t rule at that time but

said it could consider the issue at the permanent orders hearing.

¶ 15 Wife then testified at the permanent orders hearing that

husband had withheld several financial and business documents

from her. For example, wife said she hadn’t received

documentation of husband’s income from the following sources: All

Stars Floor Care, the business he owned; his new job as a

production manager at Voda Restoration; his previous job at CC

Restoration; and DoorDash. Wife also said she hadn’t received

business tax returns from husband.

¶ 16 However, wife testified about a sworn financial statement

husband had submitted two years earlier in the parties’ previous

dissolution case. In that earlier sworn statement, husband had

6 claimed a monthly income of $12,365 — considerably higher than

the roughly $6,200 monthly income he was claiming at the

permanent orders hearing.

¶ 17 Based on husband’s nondisclosure of his business financial

information, the court inferred that he continued “to earn

substantial income through his business that was not disclosed.”

See In re Marriage of Sgarlatti, 801 P.2d 18, 19 (Colo. App. 1990)

(the district court, as factfinder, could draw the inference that a

party’s refusal to make a willing disclosure of his financial status

meant he was concealing income). The court noted that its “big

question” was “what to use as [husband’s] income,” stating that its

information about the parties’ finances was limited “largely because

[husband had] not provided information to this Court . . . despite

Court Orders.” But, based on his earlier sworn financial statement,

the court found that husband earned $12,365 per month.

b. Analysis

¶ 18 Considering this record, we are not persuaded that the court

abused its discretion by imputing husband’s income based on the

figure from his previous financial disclosure, given the limited

evidence available to it. See id.; see also In re Marriage of Yates,

7 148 P.3d 304, 311 (Colo. App. 2006) (upholding an order imputing

income based on the only evidence available when the party’s

financial disclosures were “atrocious”). Husband doesn’t persuade

us otherwise by emphasizing that he filed other sworn financial

statements in this case that nearly matched the lower income he

asserted at permanent orders. By inferring that husband was

concealing additional income, the district court effectively did not

credit the lower income that he claimed at permanent orders and

that he now points to on appeal. And “any inferences and

conclusions to be drawn from the conflicting evidence were for the

district court to resolve.” In re Marriage of Tooker, 2019 COA 83,

¶ 31; see also In re Marriage of Amich, 192 P.3d 422, 424 (Colo.

App. 2007) (“The [district] court can believe all, part, or none of a

witness’s testimony, . . . and its resolution of conflicting evidence is

binding on review.”).1

1 We decline to consider husband’s argument, made for the first

time in his reply brief, that the court lacked statutory authority to impute his income because it didn’t find that he was voluntarily unemployed or underemployed. See In re Marriage of Dean, 2017 COA 51, ¶ 31 (we don’t consider arguments made for the first time in a reply brief).

8 2. Maintenance Analysis

¶ 19 Husband also contends that the district court failed to

sufficiently analyze the section 14-10-114(3)(c) factors. Again, we

are not persuaded.

¶ 20 The district court made the following findings:

• Wife worked full-time at an airline for a salary of $3,579 per

month. See § 14-10-114(3)(a)(I)(A), (a)(I)(C), (c)(I), (c)(V).

• Based on the negative inference, husband’s income was

$12,365. See § 14-10-114(3)(a)(I)(A), (a)(I)(C), (c)(II), (c)(V).

• There was very little marital property, but there were debts

apportioned to the parties. See § 14-10-114(3)(a)(I)(B), (c)(IV).

• “Husband is able to pay rent, tithe significant amounts of

money and continues, presumably, and through the Court’s

negative inference, to earn substantial income through his

business that was not disclosed.” See § 14-10-114(3)(a)(I)(A),

(a)(I)(C), (c)(II).

• Wife, meanwhile, had “nothing left,” was “working what she

can to overcome, essentially, the homelessness that she was

left with,” and couldn’t continue “any semblance of the

9 financial situation” the parties “utilized during the marriage.”

See § 14-10-114(3)(a)(I)(C), (a)(I)(D), (c)(I), (c)(III).

• Husband “essentially, used up all of [wife’s] funds and then

divorced” her, and “all” the property wife entered the marriage

with had been “depleted.” See § 14-10-114(3)(a)(I)(C), (c)(I).

• The maintenance award wasn’t taxable or tax deductible.

See § 14-10-114(3)(a)(I)(E), (c)(XII).

• The length of the marriage was eight years and five months.

See § 14-10-114(3)(c)(VII).

• The advisory guideline amount and term of maintenance was

$2,242 per month for three years and six months. See § 14-

10-114(3)(a)(II)(A).

¶ 21 Based on its findings, the court determined that wife qualified

for maintenance and ordered that she receive maintenance

consistent with the advisory guidelines. See § 14-10-114(3)(d).

¶ 22 Although the record shows that the court had limited financial

information before it, its ruling “demonstrate[s] consideration” of

the section 14-10-114(3)(c) factors. Wright, ¶ 19. Indeed, the court

made findings about the parties’ respective incomes and financial

resources, the marital property or lack thereof, the duration of the

10 marriage, and the taxability of the maintenance award. See § 14-

10-114(3)(c)(I)-(II), (IV)-(V), (VII), (XII). Contrary to husband’s

suggestion, its findings are sufficiently explicit such that we have a

clear understanding of the basis of its award. See Wright, ¶ 20.

¶ 23 And the record supports the court’s findings. For instance,

wife testified that she had “lost everything that [she had] worked

hard for,” that husband hadn’t “paid anything throughout the

marriage,” and that she earned $20.65 per hour on a five-year

contract with no opportunity for a pay increase. We will not disturb

the court’s maintenance determination when, as here, it has record

support. See In re Marriage of Atencio, 47 P.3d 718, 722 (Colo. App.

2002); see also In re Marriage of Nelson, 2012 COA 205, ¶ 35 (an

appellate court will not substitute its judgment for that of the

district court even if evidence in the record could have supported a

different result regarding maintenance).

¶ 24 Husband also asserts that the court failed to analyze either

party’s “reasonable expenses.” But the court considered the parties’

financial resources. See § 14-10-114(3)(c)(I)-(II) (factors concerning

the spouses’ financial resources include the recipient’s ability to

meet their needs independently and the payor’s ability to meet their

11 reasonable needs while paying maintenance). The court found that

wife couldn’t continue “any semblance of the financial situation” the

parties had utilized during the marriage. It also inferred that

husband continued to “earn substantial income,” found that he was

able to pay his rent and tithe significant amounts of money, and

determined that he “[had] an ability to pay” maintenance. As the

court’s ruling sufficiently established the basis for its

determination, see Wright, ¶ 20, it didn’t have to make further

findings on the financial resources factors. And, in any event, the

court didn’t have to make a specific calculation of the parties’

reasonable expenses. See § 14-10-114(3); In re Marriage of Page, 70

P.3d 579, 584 (Colo. App. 2003).

¶ 25 Husband lastly asserts that the court didn’t explain why the

advisory guideline amount it awarded was appropriate. But the

court did determine, based on its supported findings, that wife had

a need for maintenance and that the advisory guideline amount was

appropriate. Notably, the court also recognized that it was “not

bound by the guideline amounts.” See § 14-10-114(3)(e). In light of

its ruling, the court wasn’t required to make further findings. See

Wright, ¶ 20.

12 ¶ 26 In sum, we have a clear understanding of the basis of the

court’s ruling, see id., and conclude that it did not misapply the law

or abuse its discretion in awarding maintenance. See Medeiros,

¶ 58; Herold, ¶ 5.

III. Disposition

¶ 27 The judgment is affirmed.

JUDGE PAWAR and JUSTICE MARTINEZ concur.