Case Title: McLOUGHLIN v. McLOUGHLIN

Citation: 

Docket Number: 99-157

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 2000-01-26T00:00:00Z

Document:
McLOUGHLIN v. McLOUGHLIN2000 WY 11996 P.2d 5Case Number: 99-157Decided: 01/26/2000Supreme Court of Wyoming
 
MAURICE TOM McLOUGHLIN, 
Appellant (Plaintiff), v.LOULA McLOUGHLIN, Appellee 
(Defendant).

Appeal from the District 
Court of Laramie County, Honorable Edward L. Grant, 
Judge.

Philip P. 
Whynott, Cheyenne, WY. Argument presented by Mr. Whynott, Representing 
Appellant.Daniel G. Blythe of Blythe & Steiner, P.C., Cheyenne, WY. 
Argument presented by Mr. Blythe, Representing Appellee.

Before 
LEHMAN, C.J., and THOMAS, MACY, GOLDEN, and HILL, JJ.

HILL, 
Justice.

[¶1] This appeal 
challenges the district court's division of marital property between Maurice 
McLoughlin (Husband) and Loula McLoughlin (Wife). Husband contends that the 
division of the real property owned by the parties was based on an excessive 
appraisal of that property, as well as an improper consideration of its future 
value. In addition, Husband asserts that, assuming for purposes of argument that 
the appraisal was accurate, the trial court did not allow Husband adequate time 
to pay Wife for her share of the property.

[¶2] We 
affirm.

ISSUES

[¶3] Husband 
provides this statement of the issues:

1. The trial court abused 
its sound discretion in its disposition of marital 
property.

2. The trial court abused 
its discretion when it held that payment to [Wife] had to be made by January 1, 
1999.

3. It was reversible 
error to make a property division based on expected future values and not on 
current value.

[¶4] Wife opted 
not to provide a statement of the issues in her brief. W.R.A.P. 
7.02.

FACTS

[¶5] By 
complaint filed on May 6, 1997, Husband sought to dissolve his marriage. This 
appeal focuses on that portion of the proceedings wherein the trial court 
divided the real property of the parties. The facts of this dispute are 
difficult to sort out because the acquisition and development of the real 
property at issue was haphazard, was commingled with real and personal property 
owned by Husband's Mother and the parties' son, and, as is so often the case in 
matters such as this, was not arranged with divorce and the division of marital 
assets in mind.

[¶6] The parties 
married in 1970 and remained so for 28 years. Husband grew up and worked all his 
life on a ranch west of Cheyenne, which had been in his family for over 100 
years. After Husband's father died, the ranch was owned by Husband's Mother 
(Mother). Husband worked the ranch without pay and assisted his Mother to some 
small extent in paying taxes and other expenses. Husband and Wife began living 
at the ranch in November of 1970, not long after they were married. Husband was 
not concerned about being paid for his work, or his other contributions to the 
maintenance of the ranch, because he knew that he was to inherit it from his 
Mother.1 It is undisputed that in 1974, 
Mother deeded 920 acres of the ranch to Husband and Wife.2 Husband's offer, as far as a 
property division was concerned, was that, entire ranch, allowing to Wife 
something less than one-half of its value. His main goal is to keep the family 
ranch together in one, family-owned parcel. Wife, on the other hand, asked that 
the ranch be divided equally between them.

[¶7] As might be 
expected, Husband contends that Wife contributed nothing to the value of the 
ranch during their 28-year marriage, and that he worked a "day job" in order to 
keep the ranch going, as well as performing most of the ranch work. Wife 
contends that she did assist significantly with the day-to-day ranch work, that 
she also had a "day job" as Postmaster of the Granite Canyon Post Office, that 
her income was expended for groceries, clothes for the children and for various 
other family bills, that she invested an inheritance from her father into the 
operation of the ranch, and that she was principally responsible for raising the 
parties' four children. We will note here, although it has very little to do 
with the result we reach in this case, that there were numerous financial 
transactions between Husband and Mother over the years. These transactions 
included sales of parcels of land, loans, purchase by Mother of promissory notes 
owed by Husband, and seemingly "friendly" foreclosures on parcels of land owned 
by Husband near the time this divorce action was filed.3 Both parties obtained appraisals of 
the real property. Again, as might be expected, Husband's was for $250,000 and 
Wife's was for $315,000.

[¶8] The trial 
court determined the value of the ranch to be $300,000 and allocated to Wife a 
one-third interest, or $100,000. He reduced that sum by one-third of the 
indebtedness of about $50,000 owed to Mother ($17,000) and ordered husband to 
pay Wife $83,000 by January 1, 1999. Husband contends that the ranch is heavily 
mortgaged and, because of that, insists it is not possible for him to make the 
scheduled payment to Wife of the $83,000 and still keep the ranch together. 
However, the record discloses that all of the mortgages against the property, as 
well as those against ranch equipment, are held by Mother. She has been able to 
"lend" Husband money because she recently received an inheritance from her 
brother.

DISCUSSION

[¶9] Husband 
asks that we remand this case to the trial court for a reconsideration of the 
factors the court employed in arriving at a valuation of the ranch. He asserts 
that the court improperly relied upon an assumption that Husband would inherit 
his Mother's interest in the ranch. He also asserts that the trial court failed 
to take into account that the parties' ranch was acquired through Husband's 
family, as well as several other factors. Relying on the language of Wyo. Stat. 
Ann. 20-2-114 (LEXIS 1999) and this Court's decision in Paul v. Paul, 616 P.2d 707, 712-13 (Wyo. 1980), Husband contends that the trial court abused its 
discretion in awarding Wife a one-third interest in the 
ranch.

[¶10] With 
respect to the trial court's consideration of Husband's "expected" inheritance, 
it is claimed that the trial court erred because the record demonstrates that 
the portion of the ranch owned by Mother is in a trust. Indeed, the record does 
reflect that Mother's part of the ranch is in a trust. However, a complete 
reading of that portion of the record establishes that the purpose of the trust, 
as well as one of the purposes of this litigation, was to keep the ranch intact 
so that it could be passed from generation to generation without being broken up 
and sold off outside the family. The record also reflects that the Mother's 
trust contained funds to keep the ranch going and that those funds would be 
available to Husband during his lifetime. The record directly reflects that 
Husband knew he was to "inherit" the ranch from his Mother, whether that was in 
the form of an interest from a trust or some other greater interest. The trial 
court's findings in this regard are misinterpreted by Husband. The only point 
made by the trial court in this regard was that Husband's assertion that the 
Wife's appraisal was too high because it did not take into account that the 
parties' land had no access except across lands of the Mother, was illusory for 
purposes of the property division. The valuation of $300,000 set by the trial 
court was well within the range of both Husband's and Wife's appraisals. See 
Bricker v. Bricker, 877 P.2d 747, 750-51 (Wyo. 1994). We find no abuse of 
discretion in this regard.

[¶11] Husband 
also contends that the trial court failed to give adequate consideration to the 
fact that the ranch was acquired through his family. Paul, 616 P.2d  at 712 (item 
8). We are satisfied from a comprehensive review of the record that the trial 
court heard and considered extensive evidence concerning the source of the ranch 
property. Wife was awarded only a one-third interest. The record demonstrates 
that the parties had "lived and saved and worked together" for 28 years. In 
light of those facts, we hold the division of the ranch to be fair and 
equitable. Barney v. Barney, 705 P.2d 342, 345 (Wyo. 1985). Once again citing to 
Paul, Husband makes perfunctory claims that: The trial court's division was done 
to punish Husband and to reward Wife; the trial court failed to require Wife to 
share the burdens of that division; the trial court did not consider how 
ownership was acquired; and the trial court did not consider what the condition 
of the parties would be following the division. The record simply does not 
support any of those contentions. Indeed, it belies them.

[¶12] Husband 
contends that the trial court abused its discretion because it ". . . did not 
take into consideration as to how, and at what expense, the [Husband] is to pay 
the $83,000 awarded to [Wife]. [Husband] is not flush with money[.]" Husband 
contends that this Court has established a requirement that the trial court must 
hold a hearing to determine an appropriate and reasonable payment schedule in 
cases such as this, citing Bailey v. Bailey, 954 P.2d 962, 966 (Wyo. 1998). 
Husband exaggerates our holding in Bailey. That case does not mandate a hearing 
in every case where a property award is made in the form of cash. It does 
recognize that there may be circumstances that do necessitate such a hearing. In 
Bailey, we remanded for a hearing because the record demonstrated a possibility 
that a cash payment might be "sufficiently unfair" and work a significant 
hardship on Mr. Bailey. The purpose of the hearing was to determine if that was 
the circumstance faced by Mr. Bailey and, if so, for the trial court to fashion 
an appropriate and reasonable payment schedule that afforded Mrs. Bailey 
interest on the lump sum award, as well as the lump sum itself in installments. 
We see few, if any, parallels between the Bailey case and this one. Husband's 
obligations to pay the mortgages on the ranch appear to be optional. He owns 
personal property that can be sold to raise funds to pay at least a significant 
portion of the $83,000. The record is clear that he has at least some ability to 
work and has few, if any, living expenses. It is also evident from the record 
that he has at least two sources (Mother and girlfriend) from whom he has in the 
past, and likely could in the future, borrow funds to pay off Wife's interest in 
the ranch.

[¶13] The 
circumstances of this case are more akin to those cases where we have held that 
lump sum payments do not constitute an abuse of discretion. In Klatt v. Klatt, 
654 P.2d 733, 736-37 (Wyo. 1982), we upheld the sale of the Klatts' marital 
property, noting that the appellant in that case had resources and options that 
belied the claimed hardships that would be created by a sale of the parties' 
assets. In Klatt, we also noted that divorce seldom leaves the parties in the 
same circumstances as they were in prior to the divorce, and that an appellant's 
silence as far as suggesting a more workable plan which would still assure the 
wife a just and equitable share of the property being distributed, leaves both 
the trial court and the appellate court without options. Klatt, 654 P.2d  at 736 
(quoting Beckle v. Beckle, 452 P.2d 205, 208-09 (Wyo. 1969); Barbour v. Barbour, 
518 P.2d 12, 16 (Wyo. 1974); and Young v. Young, 472 P.2d 784, 785 (Wyo. 
1970)).

[¶14] As an 
aside to the above contention, Husband asserts that the trial court did not 
consider the tax consequences of the property division. In addition to being 
idle speculation, that proposition is not supported by cogent argument or 
pertinent authority, and we will not consider it further. 40 North Corporation 
v. Morrell, 964 P.2d 423, 427 (Wyo. 1998). We find no abuse of discretion in the 
trial court's division of the ranch property and decline to remand for 
additional proceedings because we are unable to ascertain from this record that 
Husband faces any hardships or detriments, other than those that routinely 
attend the dissolution of a marriage.

[¶15] Finally, 
Husband contends that it was reversible error to make a property division based 
on expected future values and not on current value. In this argument, Husband 
revives his contention that the trial court relied on the Husband's expectation 
of someday inheriting the entire ranch property. As noted above, it is our view 
that Husband has misconstrued the purport of the court's findings in this 
regard. Moreover, Husband misconstrues the totality of the record insofar as 
this issue is concerned. Husband did testify that he expects to inherit the 
entire ranch property, and it is unmistakable from the record that it is his 
objective, as well as the objective of his Mother, that the ranch remain an 
intact family asset. To the extent this argument may have any other vitality, 
Husband fails to present cogent argument or cite pertinent authority, and we 
decline to consider it further. 40 North Corporation, 964 P.2d  at 
427.

CONCLUSION

[¶16] We hold 
that there was no abuse of discretion in the trial court's division of the 
parties' real property, and the divorce decree is affirmed in all 
respects.

1 Mother had 
two children, and it was planned that Husband would inherit the ranch and a 
daughter would inherit the Mother's house in town. However, in 1995, the 
daughter died, leaving Husband as Mother's only child and only apparent 
heir.

2 Mother 
continues to own a significant portion of the historic McLoughlin family ranch. 
The parties' son also owned a small acreage on the ranch and ran some cattle and 
sheep there. The buildings that constitute the ranch "compound" (house, barn, 
shed, quanset hut, etc.) straddle the property line between the land owned by 
the parties in this matter and the land owned by Husband's Mother, thus 
complicating the settling of the value of the real property. Yet another 
complicating factor is a suggestion in the record that the 920-acre parcel owned 
by Husband and Wife has no access except across lands owned by Mother. To the 
extent the ranch has been used for ranching purposes, the grazing of cattle and 
sheep has been done on all of the ranch, with there being no distinction between 
the lands owned by Husband and Wife, Mother, or 
son.

3 We do not 
intend to suggest any "wrongdoing" or collusion between Husband and Mother, but 
those transactions contributed to the "mess" the trial court was called upon to 
disentangle.