Trubowitz v. Trubowitz

502 A.2d 940, 5 Conn. App. 681, 1985 Conn. App. LEXIS 1220
Connecticut Appellate Court·Decided December 31, 1985·No. 3755·Published·Cited by 7 cases

Opinion

Dupont, C. J.

In this appeal from the judgment dissolving the marriage of the parties and from the judgment denying the plaintiff’s motion to open that judgment, the plaintiff wife claims an abuse of discretion by the state trial referee (1) in its determination of financial awards, and (2) in its application of federal [682] tax law with regard to the payment of any capital gains tax incident to the transfer of realty as ordered.

The parties were married in 1952. During their marriage, they had seven children, one of whom was a minor as of the date of the dissolution of the marriage. The marriage was dissolved by a judgment dated July 19, 1984, although the date of the trial court’s memorandum of decision was July 18, 1984.

At the time of dissolution, the trial court found that the plaintiff was in good health and employable, and that she had participated significantly in the purchase and development of the real estate holdings of the parties, although the defendant had furnished most of the financing. It further found that both parties are well educated and that the defendant was in good health and had practiced dentistry for many years, with a gross income of approximately $220,000 in 1982.

The parties owned several parcels of real property. The trial court found that the marital home had a value, exclusive of mortgages and necessary repairs, of $412,000. A commercial property, exclusive of mortgages, was valued at $287,000. A share in a real estate venture described as Madonna Mountain was valued at $50,000. A commercial apartment and office building, housing the defendant’s dental practice and an apartment in which he lived, was found by the court to have a value of $803,000, exclusive of a $15,000 mortgage. That value was specifically based by the court on the testimony of an appraiser for the plaintiff. Whether that value could have been found, based on his testimony, is the grist of the first issue of this appeal.

The trial court found that in view of “the length of the marriage and the contributions of the parties, the real estate assets should be divided as nearly equally as possible.” Accordingly, the court ordered that the [683] plaintiff would have title to all of the realty except that in which the defendant had his office. On the basis of the court’s valuations, the defendant would retain $788,000 worth of the real property and the plaintiff would have $849,000 worth as her share. The defendant was “ordered to pay any capital gains required” by the transfers.

The court divided the personal assets of the parties, giving each certain bank accounts, and each the personalty located in their respective dwellings. The court did not indicate any particular percentage division of these assets and did not individually value them. The sum of $200 per week was ordered as support for the minor child. The defendant was ordered to pay the sum of $15,000 toward the plaintiff’s counsel fees and, in lieu of periodic alimony, was ordered to pay to the plaintiff an additional cash sum of $75,000, payable in annual installments of $25,000 over a three year period.

I

The first claim of error by the plaintiff is that the trial court abused its discretion in its determination of the financial awards. This claim is divided into two parts, one relating to the allegedly erroneous valuation of the commercial apartment and office building which was awarded to the defendant, and the other relating to the division of the personalty of the parties.

The trial court found that the value of the particular real estate was $803,000 on the basis of the testimony of the plaintiff’s appraiser. The plaintiff claims that her expert testified that the property had a fair market value of $1,071,000, and further that $803,000 was the loan value based on that fair market value, rather than its fair market value. The defendant claims that the witness testified that those were his figures based on a prior appraisal made for a bank in connection with a mortgage application of the parties, but that, on cross-[684] examination, he had conceded that $800,000 was the fair market value of the property.1 The plaintiff claims that the trial court could have found fair market value to be either $800,000, if it properly considered a letter from a bank as credible evidence,2 or $1,071,000, if it chose to accept the appraiser’s testimony, but claims that it was clearly erroneous in finding that fair market value was $803,000 when that finding was specifically based on the testimony of the plaintiff’s appraiser.3

The plaintiff views the trial court’s valuation as an “Ehrenkranz” error, requiring this court to hold that the foundation for the trial court’s judgment is faulty, and therefore an abuse of its discretion, necessitating a rehearing on the division of the assets of the parties. See Ehrenkranz v. Ehrenkranz, 2 Conn. App. 416, 479 A.2d 826 (1984).

[685] The defendant claims that the difference between $803,000 and $800,000 “constitutes a transposition of similar and related figures of a de minimus nature,” not rising to the serious error in computation found to be present in EhrenkranzA The defendant further argues that this claimed error should not be considered on appeal because the plaintiff did not, during the course of the hearing on her motion to open the judgment, challenge the court’s finding as to the value of the realty, although she attacked almost every other finding of the trial court.4 5

Before reaching the issue of whether the court abused its discretion, it must be determined whether that issue survived, for appeal purposes, after the denial of the plaintiff’s motion to open the judgment. Generally, this court is not required to consider claims unless they were distinctly raised at trial or arose subsequent to the trial, but may consider plain error in the interests of justice even if the error was not brought to the attention of the trial court. Practice Book § 3063. The section is often quoted but rarely invoked for the purpose of appellate consideration of issues not previously raised. Berchtold v. Maggi, 191 Conn. 266, 274, 464 A.2d 1 (1983); Chaplin v. Balkus, 189 Conn. 445, 447, 456 A.2d 286 (1983); Valley v. Fazzina, 187 Conn. 423, 428-29, 446 A.2d 1068 (1982).

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Trubowitz v. Trubowitz, 502 A.2d 940, 5 Conn. App. 681, 1985 Conn. App. LEXIS 1220 (Colo. Ct. App. 1985).

502 A.2d 940 (Trubowitz v. Trubowitz) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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