Stewart v. Stewart

417 P.3d 438, 290 Or. App. 864
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedMarch 21, 2018
DocketA158788
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 417 P.3d 438 (Stewart v. Stewart) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stewart v. Stewart, 417 P.3d 438, 290 Or. App. 864 (Or. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

GARRETT, J.

*866Husband appeals a dissolution judgment, assigning error to the trial court's property division. He argues that the trial court erred in finding that wife rebutted the presumption of equal contribution with respect to three marital assets credited to wife and that it abused its discretion in awarding wife those amounts, along with two other nonmarital assets. We conclude that the trial court did not err with respect to the property division, and we reject husband's second assignment of error concerning the spousal-support award without written discussion. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's judgment.

Husband requests that we review the property division de novo , asserting that a final decision on appeal "would save the parties many months of uncertainty" and "would prevent the need to return to the trial court to reopen their litigation." Husband also points to the fact that, at the time of the hearing, husband had moved to Oklahoma, and wife was contemplating moving to Florida. We exercise our discretion to review a matter de novo only in "exceptional" cases. ORS 19.415(3)(b) ; ORAP 5.40(8)(c). Although *442concerns about judicial economy are pertinent when determining whether to exercise our discretion, the concerns raised by husband are not unique to this case, and, therefore, this case is not an exceptional one for which de novo review is warranted. Cf. Benson and Benson , 288 Or. App. 619, 622, 406 P.3d 148 (2017) (concluding that de novo review was warranted because the "concerns about judicial economy and the need to provide a final resolution to the parties" were "unique to [the] appeal").

Because we decline husband's request, "we are bound by the trial court's express and implicit factual findings if they are supported by any evidence in the record." Morton and Morton , 252 Or. App. 525, 527, 287 P.3d 1227 (2012). If the trial court did not make express findings, we assume "that the trial court found the facts in a manner consistent with its ultimate conclusion." Kotler and Winnett , 282 Or. App. 584, 597, 385 P.3d 1200 (2016). We state the facts consistently with those principles.

*867Wife resided in Florida when she met husband, and she moved into his apartment in Oregon in 1999. At that time, she owned a condominium in Florida. She also owned a certificate of deposit account (CD) with a Florida bank, and she later transferred those funds into a CD with Oregon Community Credit Union (OCCU), less some cash that she kept. In July 2000, wife purchased a home on Lasater Boulevard in Eugene (the Lasater residence), which eventually became the couple's marital residence. She paid the down payment and closing costs for the home. Wife refinanced the Lasater residence in 2009, and, at that time, she added husband to the title and as an obligor for the new mortgage.

Also before the marriage, wife took out a mortgage to purchase a property on Linden Avenue in Springfield (the Linden property), which the couple used as a rental property. Wife put the title for the Linden property in husband's name. Wife paid the down payment and closing costs for that property, using funds from the sale of her Florida condo.

The couple married in July 2002. During the marriage, the couple dealt with their shared finances using an OCCU account opened by wife, which was jointly held with husband for most of the marriage. That account contained multiple subaccounts, including wife's checking account (the 1062 account), an account used for the couple's joint expenses (the operating fund), and an account used for the Linden rental property's finances (the rental account). The couple considered the 1062 checking account to be wife's separate subaccount, and she deposited her paychecks into it. Wife made the entire OCCU account "joint" with husband because she wanted him to be able to see the balances in the various subaccounts. Husband had a different account with OCCU that contained a checking and savings account; the couple considered that account to be husband's separate account, but it was also nominally "joint" with wife. Wife had another account with OCCU that was not joint with husband that she used for business expenses, to receive reimbursements from her employers, and to make mortgage payments. Wife also had a separate savings account with Capital One.

*868For most of the marriage, wife and husband each made fixed monthly deposits into the "operating fund" from their individual earnings. Wife kept track of their spending on a spreadsheet, and she paid for joint expenses-such as food, household maintenance, and vacations-from the "operating fund." If the couple's joint spending exceeded the balance of the operating fund, they would "split the overage." Husband was an authorized user on wife's credit card account, and each spouse paid for their individual credit card purchases from their respective earnings. Throughout the marriage, wife paid the mortgage for the Lasater residence in full from her earnings, and husband generally paid all of the utility bills for the home from his earnings (or, when he had no earnings, from his savings or unemployment benefits). From the beginning of the marriage until dissolution, wife worked as a software consultant and project manager, and her annual earnings ranged from $64,408 in 2002 to $113,700 in 2013.

For over a decade, husband worked as a wrestling coach and an administrator in a *443university athletic department. When the university eliminated husband's position in 2009, he developed a plan to open a "pub/lottery" named Oasis. Husband ran the Oasis business, while wife maintained her full-time employment as a consultant. The couple used the Linden property as collateral to borrow funds to keep the business in operation (the Oasis loan). In February 2011, the couple closed Oasis because it was not profitable. From the time after Oasis closed until the dissolution, husband worked as a salesman and wrestling official, and he had little to no income.

Wife refinanced the Lasater residence in 2013 to obtain a lower interest rate, and she put the new loan solely in her name. Wife paid the down payment and closing costs for the refinance with funds from her Capital One savings account.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
417 P.3d 438, 290 Or. App. 864, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stewart-v-stewart-orctapp-2018.