Case Title: Millay v. McKay

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2017 ME 39

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 2017-03-07T00:00:00Z

Document:
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2017 ME 39 
Docket: 
Pen-16-104 
Submitted  
   On Briefs: January 19, 2017  
 
 
 
 
 
Decided: 
March 7, 2017 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
LAURA A. MILLAY 
 
v. 
 
JOHN E. MCKAY JR. 
 
 
PER CURIAM 
[¶1]  Laura A. Millay and John “Jack” E. McKay Jr. were married on 
November 18, 2006, and have two young children.  A few days before the 
marriage, when Millay was pregnant with their first child, McKay presented 
Millay with a prenuptial agreement, which she signed without benefit of 
counsel.   
[¶2]  McKay entered the marriage with substantial financial assets, 
including revocable and irrevocable trusts worth over $1,000,000 and two 
properties located on Ohio Street in Bangor.  Before their marriage, the couple 
purchased, as joint tenants, property on Verona Island.  McKay spent over 
$400,000 of his nonmarital assets to support the relationship and the 
marriage, including the purchase of property on Verona Island, contributions 
 
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to Millay’s education, and renovations to the Ohio Street and Verona Island 
properties.  Despite the property improvements, all the properties’ values 
decreased significantly during the marriage due to market forces.   
[¶3]  After six years of marriage, Millay and McKay separated in April 
2013.  McKay then conveyed his interest in the Verona Island property to 
Millay.  She filed for divorce on September 13, 2013, in the District Court 
(Bangor) on the ground of irreconcilable differences.  See 19-A M.R.S. 
§ 902(1)(H) (2016).   
[¶4]  After a two-day trial, by judgment dated January 21, 2016, 
supported by extensive findings, the court (Jordan, J.) set aside the parties’ 
nonmarital property; divided their joint assets and debts; ordered McKay to 
pay Millay child support, retroactive to February 2015; declined to award 
spousal support other than as part of property division; denied Millay’s 
request for attorney fees; and incorporated into the judgment the parties’ 
agreement regarding parental rights and responsibilities.   
[¶5]  In its judgment, the court recognized the existence of the 
prenuptial agreement, noted the infirmities in its formation, indicated that its 
decisions regarding property division and spousal support were made based 
on the laws and general principles courts apply in dividing marital property 
 
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and determining spousal support, and stated that “an analysis independent of 
the prenuptial agreement renders the issues as to its enforceability 
irrelevant.”  Addressing allocation of the Verona Island property to Millay, the 
court suggested that its award to Millay may have been less favorable to her, 
but for provisions in the prenuptial agreement. 
[¶6]  Millay filed several post-judgment motions pursuant to M.R. 
Civ. P. 52(b), 59(a), (b), and (e); and 60(b)(6).  She now appeals from the 
court’s property division, spousal support, and attorney fee determinations, 
from some evidentiary rulings, and from the denial of her post-judgment 
motions.  See 14 M.R.S. § 1901 (2016); 19-A M.R.S. §104 (2016), M.R. App. 2. 
I.  LEGAL ANALYSIS 
[¶7]  Millay’s challenges focus on the division of marital property and 
the denial of spousal support and attorney fees.  Regarding these issues, the 
court findings, supported by the record, indicate that (1) McKay had 
contributed to the marriage approximately $400,000 of his nonmarital assets; 
(2) he had made payments to support Millay completing her college education 
during the marriage; (3) Millay left the marriage with a valuable asset, the 
Verona Island real estate, which she did not have prior to the marriage; and 
(4) the parties had similar incomes or earning capacity.    
 
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[¶8]  When a party to a domestic relations appeal “asserts that the trial 
court’s findings are not supported by evidence in the record, we review the 
record, and reasonable inferences that may be drawn from the record, in the 
light most favorable to the trial court’s judgment to determine if the findings 
are supportable by competent evidence.”  Sloan v. Christianson, 2012 ME 72, 
¶ 2, 43 A.3d 978.  See also Buck v. Buck, 2015 ME 33, ¶ 5, 113 A.3d 1095.  Here, 
the record before the District Court fully supports the court’s findings in 
reaching its decision.   
[¶9]  With the court’s findings supported by the record, we review a 
court’s ultimate decision for an abuse of discretion or an error of law.  
See Buck, ¶ 6.  On this record, the court had a considerable range of discretion 
or choice in allocating marital property and awarding, or not awarding, 
spousal support or attorney fees.  See Violette v. Violette, 2015 ME 97, 
¶¶ 13-28, 120 A.3d 667; Buck, 2015 ME 33, ¶ 6, 113 A.3d 1095.  The short 
duration of the marriage, the parties’ relatively equal incomes and earning 
capacities, and the award of a substantial marital asset to Millay fully support 
the decision not to award spousal support.  See Violette, ¶ 18 (“We review an 
award of spousal support for an abuse of discretion.”); 19-A M.R.S. 
§ 951-A(2)(A) (2016). 
 
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[¶10]  The very deferential standard of review that we must apply 
when, as here, the court’s findings are supported by the record, and the broad 
discretion the trial court has in making its determinations requires that any 
appeal be carefully considered and narrowly focused recognizing the 
applicable standard of review.   
[¶11]  We take this opportunity to encourage counsel to reduce costs 
and improve chances of success by better focusing their arguments on appeal.  
On this appeal, Millay, through counsel, has taken a “buckshot approach,” 
arguing numerous procedural and substantive issues, apparently “hoping 
something will stick.”  Leigh Ingalls Saufley, Amphibians and Appellate Courts, 
51 Me. L. Rev. 18, 22-23 (1999) (“Do not use the buckshot approach hoping 
something will stick.  Some very good arguments have been lost in a sea of 
extraneous issues.  If your client is expecting your brief to be a lengthy and 
erudite tome, educate him or her on the necessity of brevity and clarity.” 
(emphasis in original)); see also United States v. Price, 988 F.2d 712, 714, 722 
(7th Cir. 1993) (addressing an appeal that presented numerous, poorly 
supported challenges to a defendant’s guilty plea and resulting sentence and 
concluding that the “appeal reads like a criminal lawyer's primer of defenses.  
This court has disapproved this sort of buckshot approach where the 
 
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defendant has only a mere hope that a pellet will strike.  None of [the 
defendant’s] pellets have found their mark.” (citation omitted)). 
[¶12]  Millay contends that the court erred by: 
• denying her motion for further findings of fact and conclusions of law, a 
motion that was not supported by the filings required by the Rules, see 
M.R. Civ. P. 52(a), (b), Blue Br. 9-11;  
 
• denying, without comment, a single motion purporting to request 
further findings of fact and conclusions of law, a new trial, alteration or 
amendment of the judgment, relief from judgment, and clarification of 
the judgment, Blue Br. 9-10;  
 
• granting McKay’s motion to amend the judgment to include statutorily 
mandated language, correct a typographical error, and add a tax 
provision regarding the children, a wholly inexplicable argument on 
appeal, Blue Br. 9-11;  
 
• denying her motion to vacate the amended judgment, Blue Br. 9-11; 
 
• issuing an ambiguous judgment regarding the prenuptial agreement, 
Blue Br. 12; 
 
• giving effect to the prenuptial agreement, Blue Br. 16, despite the 
contrary statement by the court;  
 
• setting aside the Ohio Street properties and Boston Athenaeum share to 
McKay as his nonmarital property, Blue Br. 17-21;  
 
• “awarding nothing” to her when she alleges that the parties have 
“drastically different” economic circumstances and she is “living a 
lifestyle far less than that of” McKay, Blue Br. 23;  
 
• not equitably assigning her student loan debt and her debt to the Millay 
Family Trust, Blue Br. 24;  
 
 
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• failing to address McKay’s alleged economic misconduct regarding their 
2012 tax refund, Blue Br. 22-23;  
 
• denying her request to order the sale of McKay’s nonmarital firearms, 
Blue Br. 20;  
 
• not imputing full-time income to McKay, Blue Br. 25, 27-28;  
 
• not finding that McKay’s capital gains were from an ongoing source, 
Blue Br. 25-26;  
 
• not awarding child support retroactive to April 2013, Blue Br. 28;  
 
• not finding that the parties perform “substantially equal care” of the 
children and calculating child support accordingly, Blue Br. 25-28; 
 
• allowing expert witness testimony from a witness identified after the 
witness designation deadline had passed, Blue Br. 30-33;  
 
• admitting McKay’s exhibit 32, which was a summary of his testimony 
about nonmarital funds spent during the marriage, and mentioning it in 
its judgment without indicating that McKay’s testimony “altered the 
document significantly”, Blue Br. 30-31;  
 
• excluding her testimony about McKay’s lack of cooperation, but 
admitting over objection his exhibit 38, which was a partial list of 
expenses he incurred after separation, Blue Br. 30-33;  
 
• admitting de bene for impeachment purposes McKay’s exhibit 41, which 
was a series of emails between Millay and McKay, and denying her 
motion requesting that the court consider the complete series of emails, 
Blue Br. 30-33; and  
 
• not awarding her attorney fees when McKay is in a better position to 
absorb the costs of litigation and she “sought compromises and 
solutions throughout this process while [McKay] did not.”  Blue Br. 29. 
 
 
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[¶13]  This buckshot and substantially unsupported strategy for 
advancing issues on appeal is not an effective approach to appellate advocacy.  
Most complaints about the trial court’s actions are asserted without apparent 
recognition of the very deferential standards of review that we must apply 
after a trial in which the parties had a full and fair opportunity to present their 
positions and after a trial court decision that thoroughly addressed the 
contested issues and made findings supported by the record.  The issues on 
this appeal are not close; at most, the appeal should have focused on a few 
narrow points that had the best prospect of serious consideration.  Instead, 
potentially meritorious points on appeal, if any exist, have been lost in the fog 
of insubstantial and unsupportable objections to the trial process and the trial 
court’s decision. 
The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Martha J. Harris, Esq., Paine, Lynch & Harris, P.A., Bangor, for appellant Laura 
A. Millay 
 
Peter B. Bickerman, Esq., Lipman & Katz, P.A., Augusta, for appellee John E. 
McKay, Jr. 
 
 
Bangor District Court docket number FM-2013-518 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY