Michael Richard Crowley v. Tracy Marie Crowley.

• Court: Massachusetts Appeals Court
• Decided: May 20, 2025
• Docket: 23-P-1102
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOTICE: Summary decisions issued by the Appeals Court pursuant to M.A.C. Rule 23.0, as appearing in 97 Mass. App. Ct. 1017 (2020) (formerly known as rule 1:28, as amended by 73 Mass. App. Ct. 1001 [2009]), are primarily directed to the parties and, therefore, may not fully address the facts of the case or the panel's decisional rationale. Moreover, such decisions are not circulated to the entire court and, therefore, represent only the views of the panel that decided the case. A summary decision pursuant to rule 23.0 or rule 1:28 issued after February 25, 2008, may be cited for its persuasive value but, because of the limitations noted above, not as binding precedent. See Chace v. Curran, 71 Mass. App. Ct. 258, 260 n.4 (2008).

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

APPEALS COURT

23-P-1102

MICHAEL RICHARD CROWLEY

vs.

TRACY MARIE CROWLEY.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

This case involves the property division of the parties'

marital home, which was decided in a judgment of divorce nisi

dated March 15, 2023.1 The wife subsequently filed a motion for

clarification and to amend the judgment, which was denied, and

this appeal followed.

Although the parties moved in together in 2006, and have

children born in 2007 and 2010, theirs was a very short-term

marriage. The parties were married on March 23, 2017, and the

1The judgment nisi, not entered on the docket until March 27, 2023 (the important date in terms of the timeliness of the appeal, Mass. R. A. P. 4 [a] [1], as appearing in 481 Mass. 1606 [2019]), recites that it was decided "as of March 3, 2023," the date of the trial. husband filed for divorce on September 23, 2019. The wife

actually filed for divorce before that, prior to retaining an

attorney. The parties subsequently agreed to dismiss the wife's

complaint for divorce, and the case on the husband's complaint

for divorce is the one in which judgment entered, and that we

now have before us.

The parties entered a stipulation for partial judgment,

which, at least initially, left open only a single question for

trial: whether the marital home should be included as divisible

marital property, and, if so, how its value should be divided.

At some point, it appears the parties also agreed to submit for

trial the question of what percentage of the uninsured medical,

dental, and extracurricular expenses of the children should be

borne by each party. Up until the trial, the husband had been

paying seventy percent of those expenses.

Discussion. 1. Division of the Marital Home. The

parties’ marital home had been purchased by the husband before

the marriage. The husband claimed that he had made all the

payments on the house during the marriage. In his proposed

findings of fact and conclusions of law with respect to the

division of the home, the husband's primary argument was that

the house should not be considered part of the marital estate.

In the alternative, he argued for a division based on dividing

the number of months of marriage -- thirty -- by the number of

2 months of ownership of the asset -- 140 -- multiplied by the

total asset equity increase from the date of purchase to the

date of trial -- $327,300 -- for a total of $35,067.85. He

proposed deducting from that an alleged predistribution payment

to the wife of $11,875.

The wife, by contrast, argued that she should get fifty

percent of the growth in equity during the marriage, which she

argued was $203,000, for a total of $101,500.

The purpose of an equitable division of marital property is

"to recognize and equitably recompense the parties' respective

contributions to the marital partnership," Hassey v. Hassey, 85

Mass. App. Ct. 518, 530 (2014) (quotation omitted), and in

making such a division a judge must "consider[] all the relevant

factors under G. L. c. 208, § 34," and not rely "on any

irrelevant factors." Zaleski v. Zaleski, 469 Mass. 230, 245

(2014). In the order dividing the marital assets, "the reasons

for the judge's conclusions must be apparent in his decision."

Pare v. Pare, 409 Mass. 292, 296 (1991).

In her decision the judge found

"that approximately 40% of the equity in the former marital home is marital for the duration of the parties' marriage. The parties have lived together since 2006 and they have two children together . . . . The Husband is requesting that the court exclude all the equity in the residence that he owned prior to the marriage and claims to have made all payments for the house. This position does not account for the Wife's homemaker contributions."

3 In this appeal, the wife argues that there is no explanation for

the forty percent that the judge determined would be included in

the marital estate. She argues that the phrase "40% of the

equity in the former marital home is marital for the duration of

the parties' marriage" is ambiguous, and that one cannot

determine where the calculation of the amount of the equity

owned by the wife, which the judge determined to be $44,660,

comes from. We, too, find the meaning of this phrase and the

derivation of the total amount of equity awarded to the wife

unclear.

The phrase "martial for the duration of the parties'

marriage" may mean that the judge is referring only to the

equity growth during the time of the marriage, $203,000. That

is, after all, the equity that the wife wanted included in the

marital estate. However, the judge's next sentence is, "[t]he

parties have lived together since 2006 and they have two

children together." This suggests, perhaps, that the judge was

including in her calculation some of the premarital

contributions to the parties' partnership in her calculation of

what equity should be included in the marital estate.

In his proposed findings and conclusions, the husband

argued that he "made all the payments for the house, made all of

the capital improvements to the house, . . . [and] was solely

responsible for securing and paying the loans made to acquire

4 and improve the real estate." The judge's decision as quoted

above goes on, "[t]he Husband is requesting that the court

exclude all the equity in the residence that he owned prior to

the marriage and claims to have made all payments for the house.

This position does not account for the wife's homemaker

contributions." This, too, seems to suggest that the judge

intended to include some of the equity in the house acquired

prior to the marriage.

Conversely, the judge further found that "[t]his is a short

marriage[,] so the Court finds that not all of the equity in the

former marital residence is subject to division." The judge

also made findings about improvements made by the husband to the

former marital home, stating that, "[h]e built a shed, added a

deck, beams, crawl space, insulation and improved lighting,

crown molding, closet space, renovated children's rooms and

painted." This makes it impossible to determine exactly what

equity in the house the judge concluded was "approximately 40%"

marital property.

Attempting to work backwards from the judge's calculation

of the amount due the wife, $44,660, also does not lead to a

clear answer because $44,660 is half of $89,320, which is itself

forty percent of $223,300. Of course, the increase in equity

was, the wife asserted, $203,000, not $223,300. The total

equity increase from the date of purchase to the date of trial

5 was pegged by the husband at $327,300, and while neither party

discussed what was owed on the mortgage, the total equity in the

house, including not just growth of equity through an increase

in value of the house, but the equity that the husband had in

the house at the time of purchase, less the $15,000 withdrawn

equity for kitchen remodeling, plus the amount by which the

mortgage had been paid down, may have been another number

somewhere above $323,000.

Although a division of marital property should be upheld

"unless it is plainly wrong and excessive," Zaleski, 469 Mass.

at 245 (quotation omitted), in this case, we cannot confidently

discern the judge's reasoning or rationale, and we cannot

properly decide the question based on our own speculation about

it. Consequently, so much of the judgment nisi as established

wife's equity in the former marital home at $44,660 is vacated,

and the case is remanded for a more detailed explanation of the

judge's conclusion (and perhaps, if necessary, a recalculation).

2. Division of Expenses. The second issue before us is

the judge's conclusion that uninsured medical and other

extracurricular expenses should be divided between the parties,

with the husband paying sixty percent and the wife forty. Prior

to the judgment, the husband had been paying seventy percent of

these expenses and he asked that they be adjusted so that the

6 parties shared those expenses equally. The wife asked that they

be kept at the existing seventy-thirty percent ratio.

The judge concluded that the costs would be divided sixty

percent (husband) and forty percent (wife). In reaching this

conclusion, the wife argues, the judge erroneously found that

the husband's salary is sixty percent more than that of the

wife, with wife suggesting that husband's income is

approximately seventy percent more.

But how much more one party's salary is than the other's is

not relevant to the determination of what is an equitable

sharing of expenses. On the other hand, the ratio of the two

salaries to the total income earned by the parties could be. In

this case, after counting child support payments from the

husband to the wife, the husband has sixty-three percent of the

total income of the two parties. The wife has thirty-seven

percent. In light of this, we see no abuse of discretion in the

judge's conclusion that a sixty-forty split was equitable. We

therefore leave that portion of the judgment determining the

proper division of uninsured medical and extracurricular

expenses undisturbed.

Conclusion. The order denying the wife's motion for

clarification and/or to amend judgment is vacated. So much of

the judgment nisi as established wife's equity in the former

marital home at $44,660 is vacated, and the case is remanded for

7 a more detailed explanation and, if necessary, recalculation of

that amount. In all other respects the judgment nisi is

affirmed.

So ordered.

By the Court (Rubin, Hand & Brennan, JJ.2),

Clerk

Entered: May 20, 2025.

2 The panelists are listed in order of seniority.