Randy Samuel Combs v. Sharon Elizabeth Combs

CourtMichigan Court of Appeals
DecidedSeptember 14, 2023
Docket362861
StatusUnpublished

This text of Randy Samuel Combs v. Sharon Elizabeth Combs (Randy Samuel Combs v. Sharon Elizabeth Combs) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Randy Samuel Combs v. Sharon Elizabeth Combs, (Mich. Ct. App. 2023).

Opinion

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.

STATE OF MICHIGAN

COURT OF APPEALS

RANDY SAMUEL COMBS, UNPUBLISHED September 14, 2023 Plaintiff-Appellee,

v No. 362861 Oakland Circuit Court Family Division SHARON ELIZABETH COMBS, LC No. 2021-507361-DO

Defendant-Appellant.

Before: LETICA, P.J., and MURRAY and PATEL, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

In this divorce action, defendant appeals as of right the trial court’s judgment of divorce distributing the parties’ marital property. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

This case arises from a divorce between plaintiff (husband) and defendant (wife). The parties were married for 44 years. Plaintiff filed for divorce in June 2021. Before trial, both parties were instructed to file their respective witness lists one week before the close of discovery. Neither party timely filed their witness lists. Plaintiff filed his witness list 13 days before the start of trial, and defendant filed hers 7 days before trial. Due to their untimely filings, the court struck both parties’ witness lists and ordered that each party may only call themselves as a witness at trial.

The trial was held in March 2022. Plaintiff worked at General Motors for 38 years. When the parties first married, defendant worked as a clerk at General Motors; however, when she got pregnant with the parties’ first child, she left work and stayed home to maintain the marital home and care for the children. She remained unemployed throughout the remainder of the marriage. Plaintiff testified he supported his family on his General Motors income and “never” hesitated to use all of his income to care for his family. Plaintiff is currently retired and receives $3,105 per month from his General Motors pension.

During the parties’ marriage, plaintiff inherited between $150,000 and $200,000 in liquid assets from his father, as well as his father’s farm and two other parcels of real property. Plaintiff

-1- testified he used $50,000 of his inheritance to put a down payment on the marital house, and the remaining funds were put into bank accounts. During the marriage, the parties sold the two other parcels of land from plaintiff’s inheritance, and the funds from those sales were comingled into the marital estate.

Toward the end of the marriage, defendant’s father was ill and left defendant a sizable inheritance in the form of a trust upon his passing. The trust included liquid assets and the father’s home in Florida. Plaintiff stated that defendant’s imminent inheritance from her father was a factor in his decision to retire. Plaintiff testified that he and defendant had “many” discussions about her future inheritance over the course of their marriage. Plaintiff estimated that the parties discussed sharing the inheritance at least “thirty” times and that it was a frequent topic of discussion between them.

Defendant confirmed that, in addition to the liquid assets of her father’s trust, her inheritance also included her father’s condominium in Florida. The condominium was sold before trial, and defendant was entitled to approximately $630,000, which represented her half of the proceeds. Defendant testified she had yet to receive the funds from the condominium sale. Additionally, defendant received a check for $290,000 from the sale of her father’s house in Michigan but had not yet deposited it. Defendant deposited the distributions from her father’s trust into her own separate bank account. Defendant also stated that she and plaintiff never discussed her inheritance or made any kind of agreement concerning the inheritance. Likewise, defendant testified she never intended to use her inheritance as a retirement fund for her and plaintiff. Regarding plaintiff’s pension, defendant did not know whether the pension included a spousal benefit. When asked by counsel if she wanted to receive half of plaintiff’s pension, defendant responded, “No.”

Relevant to this appeal, plaintiff argued at the close of trial that defendant’s inheritance should be considered marital property because both parties intended for defendant’s inheritance to become a marital asset. Additionally, plaintiff maintained that he comingled his separate inheritance into the marital estate to support the marriage based on defendant’s representations concerning her inheritance. Regarding his pension, plaintiff argued that he should receive his pension in full in lieu of spousal support. In turn, defendant argued she never planned to share her inheritance with plaintiff, nor did she share her inheritance money with plaintiff or allow him to manage it. Thus, defendant maintained she did not comingle her inheritance, and plaintiff is not entitled to receive any distribution of the trust. Regarding plaintiff’s pension, defendant stated plaintiff should receive the pension “only if this [c]ourt equally divides the remaining assets and awards [defendant] all of her separate property without any award of spousal support to [plaintiff].”

In June 2022, the trial court issued its opinion and order outlining the distribution of the parties’ marital property. Relevantly, the court concluded defendant’s interest in her father’s trust was included in the marital estate and available for equitable distribution. The court found plaintiff largely generated an income to support the family and, on top of his marital labor, also comingled his inheritance into the marital estate and relationship. The court found highly credible plaintiff’s testimony that, throughout the marriage, he and defendant often discussed using defendant’s inheritance to support themselves in retirement. The court also “found credible [plaintiff’s] representations that he comingled his substantial inheritance into the marital estate for the purposes of supporting it (and [defendant]), lived ‘paycheck to paycheck’ nonetheless, and planned to use

-2- [defendant’s] inheritance as similar support when it arrived.” In contrast, the court did not find defendant’s representations credible. Ultimately, the court concluded that excluding defendant’s inheritance from her father’s trust from the marital estate “would not leave a sufficient amount of assets to equitably compensate [plaintiff] for his efforts in light of [defendant’s] representations.” Thus, the court included defendant’s $630,000 proceeds from the sale of her father’s Florida condominium, defendant’s uncashed check of $290,000 from the sale of her father’s Michigan home, and defendant’s portion of the remainder of the trust (valued at $3,312,500)1 in the marital estate.

Regarding the distribution of the marital property, as is relevant, the court awarded plaintiff his pension “as his sole property subject to any spousal elections [plaintiff] previously made on the policy.” But the court did not list a value for the pension on its asset sheet attached to the opinion and order. The parties were each awarded a one-half interest in the $630,000 from the Florida condominium sale and the $290,000 uncashed check for the Michigan home sale.2 Defendant was awarded 100% of the remaining assets of her father’s trust. Plaintiff was awarded the marital home, the farm he inherited from his father, his bank account, a truck he inherited from his father,3 a pontoon boat, and his defunct business. The parties were also each awarded a one- half interest in several different bank accounts.4 Plaintiff’s total award, after deducting liabilities for credit card debt and tax debt, was $998,061.25, which did not include the value of his pension. Defendant’s total award was $4,301,885.25, which included the remaining assets of the trust and money from several of her checking and savings accounts.

II. DISTRIBUTION OF PROPERTY

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Randy Samuel Combs v. Sharon Elizabeth Combs, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/randy-samuel-combs-v-sharon-elizabeth-combs-michctapp-2023.