Reed v. Reed

428 S.W.3d 641, 2013 WL 6858177, 2013 Mo. App. LEXIS 1556
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 31, 2013
DocketNo. WD 76222
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 428 S.W.3d 641 (Reed v. Reed) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Reed v. Reed, 428 S.W.3d 641, 2013 WL 6858177, 2013 Mo. App. LEXIS 1556 (Mo. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

CYNTHIA L. MARTIN, Judge.

Barbara Reed (“Wife”) appeals from the trial court’s Second Amended Judgment of Dissolution. Wife contends that the trial court erred in (1) finding that there was no financial misconduct on the part of Boyd Reed (“Husband”) during their marriage and in failing to take such misconduct into account in dividing the marital estate; (2) overvaluing Wife’s IRAs at their statement value rather than their lower, present value; and (3) failing to readjust its distribution of the marital estate after it allegedly revalued the marital home in an amended judgment. We affirm.

Factual and Procedural History1

Husband and wife were married on June 18, 1983. On January 17, 2012, Wife filed a petition for dissolution of marriage. On February 3, 2012, Husband filed his answer to Wife’s petition and a counter-petition for dissolution of marriage. The dissolution proceeding was tried to the court in December 2012. Both parties submitted proposed judgments to the trial court.

The trial court entered its judgment of dissolution on January 15, 2013 (the “First Judgment”). Wife filed a motion to amend the First Judgment alleging errors by the trial court in (1) incorrectly attributing $95,000 in value to Wife’s asset division based on speculation that Lot 2, the marital home lot,2 could be split to create an additional lot in the future; (2) incorrectly valuing Wife’s retirement accounts at their statement value instead of their present value; and (3) failing to make specific findings on Wife’s claim that Husband squandered marital assets.

On January 31, 2013, the trial court entered an amended judgment of dissolution (the “First Amended Judgment”) which modified the First Judgment by: (1) adding language to note that there was no indebtedness on the Easterly (Lot 3) and Westerly (Lot 1) Lots of Reed Estates; (2) adding language to note that Lot 2, the marital home lot in Reed Estates, was subject to a mortgage in the amount of $268,000 which Wife would be solely liable to pay as she was awarded that property; (3) awarding Wife her three retire[644]*644ment/pension accounts and Husband his retirement/pension account in lieu of purporting to divide those accounts; and (4) correcting an error to refer to Lot 1 as the Westerly lot and Lot 3 as the Easterly lot when the First Judgment mistakenly identified the lots in the reverse.

Wife filed a motion to amend the First Amended Judgment which repeated the same complaints Wife raised with respect to the First Judgment. On February 22, 2013, the trial court entered another amended judgment of dissolution (the “Second Amended Judgment”) which modified the First Amended Judgment by: (1) clarifying that the trial court valued Lot 2, the marital home lot, at $375,000, and had not considered the $95,000 in value that could be realized if Lot 2 were subdivided in dividing the marital estate; and (2) adding the separate values of the Westerly Lot and the Easterly Lot to the summary of property awarded to Husband.

Wife filed a motion to amend the Second Amended Judgment again alleging the complaints raised in her earlier motions to amend. On March 6, 2013, the trial court entered an order denying Wife’s motion.

Wife appeals.

Standard of Review

We will affirm the decree of dissolution unless it is not supported by substantial evidence, it is against the weight of the evidence, or it erroneously declares or applies the law. Green v. Green, 341 S.W.3d 893, 894 (Mo.App. W.D.2011) (citing Murphy v. Carron, 536 S.W.2d 30, 32 (Mo. banc 1976)). “We view the evidence in the light most favorable to the decree, disregard evidence to the contrary, and defer to the trial court even if the evidence could support a different conclusion.” Sweet v. Sweet, 154 S.W.3d 499, 503-04 (Mo.App. W.D.2005). We defer to the trial court’s credibility determinations and “assume all factual issues were resolved in favor of the judgment entered.” Id. at 504. “We review questions of law de novo.” Green, 341 S.W.3d at 894 (citing Smith v. Am. Family Mut. Ins. Co., 289 S.W.3d 675, 680-81 (Mo.App. W.D.2009)).

We review the trial court’s division of property for an abuse of discretion. Sabatino v. Sabatino, 314 S.W.3d 854, 858 (Mo.App. W.D.2010). An abuse of discretion is only found where the award is “clearly against the logic of the circumstances then before the court and is so arbitrary and unreasonable as to shock the sense of justice and indicate a lack of careful consideration; if reasonable people can differ about the propriety of the action taken by the trial court, it cannot be said the trial court abused its discretion.” Sweet, 154 S.W.3d at 504 (internal quotation marks omitted).

“Two other basic rules govern an appellate court’s review of an order distributing marital property. The first of these is that section 452.330 does not require an equal division of the marital property” instead emphasizing a just, fair and equitable division under the particular circumstances. In re Marriage of Strelow, 581 S.W.2d 426, 429-30 (Mo.App. E.D.1979) (citation omitted). “The second ... is that the trial court is vested with considerable discretion in dividing the marital property; ‘appellate courts will neither scour and nitpick the record for accounting error nor second-guess the trial court’s balance of the equities.’ ” Id. at 430 (quoting In re Marriage of Schulte, 546 S.W.2d 41, 47 (Mo.App.1977)). “We presume that the division is correct, ‘and the party opposing the division bears the burden of overcoming this presumption.’ ” Jenkins v. Jenkins, 406 S.W.3d 919, 925 (Mo.App. W.D.2013) (quoting Moen v. Moen, 140 S.W.3d 611, 613 (Mo.App. W.D.2004)).

[645]*645Analysis

Point I

For her first point, Wife claims that the trial court erred in finding there was no financial misconduct on the part of Husband during the marriage, and thus in failing to take misconduct into account in dividing the marital estate. Wife’s point relied on asserts that Husband was guilty of financial misconduct: (1) by amassing over $50,000 in debt without Wife’s knowledge; (2) by depleting Wife’s $47,000 IRA prematurely after Wife changed the password to the account; and (3) by depleting his $206,000 IRA without Wife’s knowledge. Our review of the record indicates that the trial court’s finding that Husband did not engage in financial misconduct is supported by substantial evidence, is not against the weight of the evidence, and did not erroneously declare the law.

Section 452.330.1,3 which governs the division of property in a dissolution proceeding, provides the trial court is required to consider all relevant factors, including the conduct of the parties during the marriage.

Under section 452.330.1(4), the trial court is required to consider the parties’ conduct during the marriage when dividing the marital property....

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
428 S.W.3d 641, 2013 WL 6858177, 2013 Mo. App. LEXIS 1556, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/reed-v-reed-moctapp-2013.