2023 UT App 11

THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS

DAVID WELLMAN,

Appellee,

v.

KRISTIN KAWASAKI,

Appellant.

Opinion

No. 20210265-CA

Filed February 2, 2023

Fourth District Court, Provo Department

The Honorable Christine S. Johnson

No. 174402919

Mary Deiss Brown, Attorney for Appellant

Eric M. Swinyard and Keith L. Johnson, 

Attorneys for Appellee

JUDGE RYAN M. HARRIS authored this Opinion, in which 

JUDGES MICHELE M. CHRISTIANSEN FORSTER and DAVID N.

MORTENSEN concurred.

HARRIS, Judge:

¶1 Kristin Kawasaki appeals various aspects of a 

comprehensive set of rulings issued following a two-day divorce 

trial and post-trial proceedings; her chief complaint relates to the 

trial court’s decision not to award her alimony. For the reasons 

discussed below, we affirm the court’s orders.

BACKGROUND

¶2 David Wellman and Kristin Kawasaki married in 1999 and 

have three children together, two of whom were minors at the 

time of trial. For most of their marriage, Kawasaki did not work 
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outside the home but instead cared for the children full-time. By

the time of trial, however, Kawasaki was working full-time as a 

receptionist, earning $3,667 per month; Wellman, an engineer,

was earning $10,833 monthly. 

¶3 In November 2017, Wellman filed for divorce. Some 

months later, the trial court entered temporary orders, based 

partially on stipulation, that made Kawasaki the primary physical 

custodian of the minor children, and that required Wellman to 

pay both $2,182 per month in child support as well as, in lieu of 

alimony, the mortgage payment on the marital house (in the 

amount of $2,836 per month). Additionally, the court awarded 

“the temporary exclusive use and possession of” the parties’ 

marital house to Kawasaki.

¶4 In the three years between their separation and their 

eventual divorce trial, the parties’ finances and daily lives 

remained enmeshed due to Wellman’s changing employment and 

living situation. Despite the fact that Kawasaki had been awarded 

exclusive use of the marital house in the temporary orders, 

Wellman lived in the basement of the house off and on in the years 

leading up to trial. Wellman paid the mortgage in many of the 

months, but missed those payments in others, and had stopped 

making those payments altogether by the time of trial. And 

despite being ordered to make child support payments, Wellman 

never made a single such payment to Kawasaki prior to trial,

opting instead to pay many of her bills directly or to buy groceries

for the household while he was living in the marital house.

¶5 Eventually, the case proceeded to a bench trial, which was 

held—virtually, through a videoconference platform—over two 

days in late November and early December 2020. During the trial, 

the court heard testimony from Wellman and Kawasaki as well as 

several other witnesses. At the trial’s outset, before testimony 

began, Wellman’s counsel alerted the court that Kawasaki had 

failed to timely produce any financial documents (e.g., bank or 
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20210265-CA 3 2023 UT App 11

credit card statements, copies of bills) to support her claim for 

alimony, despite the fact that the court had ordered both parties 

to turn over to the other side a year’s worth of bank statements 

prior to trial. In addition, while Kawasaki had submitted a 

financial declaration in 2017, at the outset of the litigation, for use 

during the temporary orders hearing, she had never updated that 

declaration. Wellman’s counsel asserted that, under applicable 

law, Kawasaki’s failure to provide documentation to support her 

alimony claim “operates as an effective bar to [Kawasaki’s]

request for alimony.” Kawasaki’s counsel attempted to remedy 

the situation by offering to have Kawasaki read a printout of her

most current (yet undisclosed) bank statement into the record, but 

the court refused to allow that, explaining that it would not be 

“appropriate” for Kawasaki to use evidence at trial that had not 

been timely disclosed. But the court did not view Kawasaki’s 

failure to produce an updated financial declaration or supporting 

financial documents as a complete bar to her alimony claim; 

indeed, the court stated that the parties “can address alimony 

with documents that are already in the record,” and later allowed 

both parties to offer testimony regarding certain aspects of 

Kawasaki’s alimony claim. 

¶6 During her trial testimony, Kawasaki provided few 

concrete financial details; in particular, she made no attempt to tie 

her testimony to any previously filed financial declaration, and 

she did not submit any such declaration for the court’s 

consideration at trial. The only specific dollar amounts Kawasaki 

testified about were the amounts Wellman was ordered to pay in 

connection with the temporary orders and the wage she earned 

when she later obtained employment. She testified that, at the 

time of trial, her net income each month was $2,800 but that, due 

to expenses, “most months [she goes] into the negative” and has 

to rely on her “overdraft.” However, she offered no concrete 

expense numbers to substantiate this assertion. She offered her 

belief that an apartment in her area suitable for her and the 
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children would cost “about $2,000,” but did not know what the 

other expenses associated with such an apartment would be. 

¶7 At one point, Kawasaki’s counsel even acknowledged that 

she was “having trouble establishing [her] client’s needs . . . 

because of disclosure problems,” but asserted that “there are ways 

of establishing [Kawasaki’s] needs by establishing [Wellman’s] 

needs.” To this end, counsel attempted to draw on figures 

Wellman had put together before trial and to press him on how 

much is “enough for a single person to live with three children.” 

But counsel did not question Wellman about the line-item 

expenses on his financial declarations, and did not submit any of 

those declarations for the court’s consideration. Wellman did 

admit, however, in response to a general question about how 

much it would “cost to live with three kids,” that “$1,000 to $1,500 

[monthly] for daily activities and food” was not “unreasonable.” 

¶8 After considering all of the evidence presented, and after 

taking into account the closing arguments from the attorneys, the 

court took the matter under advisement, and later issued a written 

ruling. In that ruling, the court awarded Kawasaki sole physical 

custody of the minor children, allowing Wellman parent-time 

pursuant to Utah Code section 30-3-35. The court ordered 

Wellman to pay Kawasaki $1,578 per month in child support, 

calculated by using the sole custody worksheet and assessing 

Wellman’s monthly gross income at $10,833 and Kawasaki’s at 

$3,667. The court also ordered Wellman to pay Kawasaki $76,370 

in child support arrears, in light of the fact that Wellman had not 

made any direct child support payments pursuant to the 

temporary order. The court awarded title of the marital house to 

Wellman, but ordered that the equity in the house be divided

equally within one year, either through a sale or a refinance. With 

regard to all other marital debts, including debt from a loan taken 

out during the marriage on a Thunderbird vehicle the parties had

purchased during the marriage, the court ordered that the parties 

“be equally responsible for” them. 
Wellman v. Kawasaki

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¶9 With regard to alimony, however, the court declined 

Kawasaki’s request in its entirety. The court noted that the party 

requesting alimony bears the burden to establish entitlement to it, 

including the burden of establishing that party’s financial need. 

The court found that Kawasaki “did not present any bank 

statements whatsoever, nor did she submit a financial declaration 

or any documentary evidence regarding her income, expenses, or 

debts.” And the court found that Kawasaki’s testimony about her 

financial need “was inconsistent and missing critical information” 

and was not enough, in the absence of any documentary evidence, 

to “persuade the Court that alimony should continue.”

¶10 After the ruling, Kawasaki filed a post-trial motion, chiefly 

to ask the court to order either (a) that the marital house be sold 

right away rather than within one year, or (b) that Kawasaki be 

allowed possession of it until the sale or refinance. Among other 

requests, Kawasaki also asked the court to amend its order so that 

she would not have to share in paying off the debt relating to the 

Thunderbird, asserting that Wellman had gifted the car to her and 

then later destroyed it. But Kawasaki did not ask the court to 

amend its alimony ruling. Following a hearing on the motion, the 

court reiterated that Kawasaki was liable for her share of the 

Thunderbird debt because “the debt was attributable to the 

parties’ IRS debt,” which was a joint debt, and the court declined 

Kawasaki’s request to materially amend its order regarding the 

marital house. 

ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶11 Kawasaki now appeals, and asks us to review the trial 

court’s decision not to award her any alimony.

1 “We review a 

1. In her brief, Kawasaki also challenges the trial court’s failure “to 

compensate [her] for Wellman’s post-separation destruction of 

(continued...)
Wellman v. Kawasaki

20210265-CA 6 2023 UT App 11

court’s alimony determination for an abuse of discretion,” Fox v. 

Fox, 2022 UT App 88, ¶ 11, 515 P.3d 481 (quotation simplified), 

and “as long as the court exercises its discretion within the bounds 

and under the standards our supreme court has set and so long as 

the trial court has supported its decision with adequate findings 

and conclusions,” we “will not disturb its ruling on alimony,” 

Miner v. Miner, 2021 UT App 77, ¶ 11, 496 P.3d 242 (quotation 

simplified).

ANALYSIS

¶12 “Under Utah law, the primary purposes of alimony are: (1) 

to get the parties as close as possible to the same standard of living 

that existed during the marriage; (2) to equalize the standards of 

living of each party; and (3) to prevent the recipient spouse from 

becoming a public charge.” Miner, 2021 UT App 77, ¶ 14 

(quotation simplified). “The core function of alimony is therefore 

her separate property, the Thunderbird.” We agree with 

Wellman, however, that this precise issue was not properly 

presented to the trial court and is therefore unpreserved. See State 

v. Johnson, 2017 UT 76, ¶ 15, 416 P.3d 443 (“When a party fails to 

raise and argue an issue in the trial court, it has failed to preserve 

the issue, and an appellate court will not typically reach that 

issue.”). At trial, the Thunderbird was discussed only as a 

negative asset, due to the loan the parties had taken out on the 

vehicle to pay marital debts. The only question the parties put 

before the court, as concerned the Thunderbird, was which of 

them (or both) should bear the responsibility for paying off the 

debts associated with the vehicle. Kawasaki did not make an 

argument that the Thunderbird had any positive equity, let alone 

an argument that any such value should be awarded to her as her 

separate property. Consequently, Kawasaki’s current claim to 

that effect, here on appeal, is not preserved for our review, and 

we do not discuss it further.
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economic,” and “regardless of the payor spouse’s ability to pay 

more, the recipient spouse’s demonstrated need must constitute 

the maximum permissible alimony award.” Roberts v. Roberts, 

2014 UT App 211, ¶ 14, 335 P.3d 378 (quotation simplified).

¶13 In evaluating a party’s alimony claim, “courts must 

consider the statutory alimony factors,” which include “the 

financial condition and needs of the recipient spouse, the 

recipient’s earning capacity, and the ability of the payor spouse to 

provide support.” Fox, 2022 UT App 88, ¶ 20 (quotation 

simplified). These three factors are often called the “Jones factors” 

because they date back to Jones v. Jones, 700 P.2d 1072 (Utah 1985); 

they have since been codified in Utah Code section 30-3-

5(10)(a)(i)–(iii), and they remain the first three factors of a “multifactor inquiry” that governs a court’s alimony determination. See 

Miner, 2021 UT App 77, ¶ 16.

¶14 “A party seeking alimony bears the burden of 

demonstrating to the court that the Jones factors support an award 

of alimony.” Dahl v. Dahl, 2015 UT 79, ¶ 95, 459 P.3d 276. The most 

common way for a party to satisfy this burden is for the party to 

“provide the court with a credible financial declaration and 

[supporting] financial documentation to demonstrate that the 

Jones factors support an award of alimony.” Id. ¶ 96. And in most 

cases, that is what the parties do; indeed, our current rules of civil 

procedure require parties in domestic cases to turn over to the 

other side, at the outset of the case, “a fully completed Financial 

Declaration, using the court-approved form,” along with 

“attachments,” including recent bank statements and tax returns 

as well as “copies of statements verifying the amounts listed on 

the Financial Declaration.” See Utah R. Civ. P. 26.1(c). The courtapproved form includes a table where parties are expected to set 

forth, in line-item fashion, their monthly expenses. See Financial 

Declaration, Utah State Courts, 6-7, https://legacy.utcourts.gov/ho

wto/family/financial_declaration/ docs/1352FA_Financial_Declar

ation.pdf [https://perma.cc/K77G-Y99V]. And these disclosures, 
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like other required disclosures, must be timely supplemented in 

the event things materially change. See Utah R. Civ. P. 26(d)(5). At 

trial, parties seeking alimony often use the line-item expense 

categories listed in their financial declarations as a template for 

the “needs” portion of their alimony request, offering testimony 

about the items in the declaration and seeking admission into 

evidence of the applicable documents (bank statements, credit 

card statements, tax returns, etc.) that support the various expense 

categories. See, e.g., Miner, 2021 UT App 77, ¶¶ 20–63 (analyzing 

separate challenges to eleven of the forty-five expense line items 

in a trial court’s alimony award). 

¶15 In this case, however, Kawasaki did not follow this course 

of action. She did submit a financial declaration in 2017, at the 

outset of the case, and it was used in connection with the 

temporary orders hearing. But she did not ever supplement that 

declaration in advance of the trial held some three years later; she 

did not testify about that declaration at trial; she failed to 

produce—even after the court ordered her to do so—any financial 

documentation supporting her alleged expenses; and she failed to 

gain admission of either her declaration or any specific financial

documentation into evidence at trial.

2

¶16 Litigants who bring alimony claims but fail to support 

them with the usual documentation put trial courts in a very 

difficult spot. On the one hand, trial courts are trained to be 

sensitive to the potential unfairness of a litigant—in particular one 

who has spent years, perhaps even decades, out of the workforce 

while raising children—being left without sufficient support, 

especially where that litigant’s spouse is able to live comfortably. 

Indeed, alimony is supposed to allow the recipient spouse to 

2. As noted, the trial court excluded some of Kawasaki’s offered 

evidence on the ground that the documents had not been timely 

disclosed to Wellman. On appeal, Kawasaki does not challenge 

the court’s ruling excluding her undisclosed evidence. 
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enjoy, as much as possible, the marital standard of living, and is 

designed “to prevent the recipient spouse from becoming a public 

charge.” Id. ¶ 14 (quotation simplified). In this context, as is often 

the case in family law, trial courts have wide discretion to fashion 

remedies that fit the situation faced by the family at issue. See

Vanderzon v. Vanderzon, 2017 UT App 150, ¶ 41, 402 P.3d 219 

(“Trial courts have considerable discretion in determining 

alimony and determinations of alimony will be upheld on appeal 

unless a clear and prejudicial abuse of discretion is 

demonstrated.” (quotation simplified)). 

¶17 In particular, trial courts are vested with discretion to 

“impute figures” for a recipient spouse’s needs analysis, even 

where complete documentation is lacking, as long as there is 

sufficient evidence to support such imputation. See Dahl, 2015 UT 

79, ¶ 116 (stating that courts “may impute figures” (emphasis 

added)). In cases where an alimony claimant fails to provide 

sufficient documentation, courts may find adequate support for 

the imputation of particular expenses in, for instance, the 

opposing party’s documentation, see id. (stating that “the district 

court could have . . . imputed a figure to determine [the recipient 

spouse’s] financial need based . . . on . . . [the opposing party’s] 

records of the parties’ predivorce expenses”), or in updated 

financial declarations supported not by timely disclosed financial 

documents but instead by the sworn testimony of witnesses, see

Munoz-Madrid v. Carlos-Moran, 2018 UT App 95, ¶ 10, 427 P.3d 420 

(upholding a trial court’s imputation of some of a recipient 

spouse’s expense items, despite the spouse’s “fail[ure] to provide 

supporting documentation with her financial declaration,” 

because the spouse had provided an updated financial 

declaration and another witness had offered specific testimony at 

trial about the spouse’s rent and utilities expenses that was 

“consistent with [the] financial declaration”). 

¶18 But on the other hand, trial courts’ discretion in this arena 

is not unlimited, and courts that go too far in trying to help 
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litigants who haven’t sufficiently supported their alimony claims 

risk abusing their discretion. Courts that make alimony awards 

“must support [those] determinations with adequate findings,”

see Rule v. Rule, 2017 UT App 137, ¶ 22, 402 P.3d 153, including 

specific findings regarding a recipient spouse’s reasonable 

monthly needs. Where trial courts attempt to make alimony 

awards in the absence of specific findings, supported by evidence 

in the record, regarding a recipient spouse’s actual needs, those 

courts have often been reversed. See, e.g., Eberhard v. Eberhard, 2019 

UT App 114, ¶¶ 36–40, 449 P.3d 202 (reversing as inadequately 

supported a trial court’s alimony award that, on its face, exceeded 

the recipient spouse’s monthly needs but was apparently 

designed to vaguely bring her more into line with “the marital 

standard of living,” and stating that “[w]ithout the district court 

more precisely spelling out the amount that [the recipient spouse] 

realistically requires . . . to enjoy the marital standard of living, we 

are unable to discern whether the alimony award, in fact, exceeds 

her needs”); Bakanowski v. Bakanowski, 2003 UT App 357, ¶¶ 11–

13, 80 P.3d 153 (reversing where “the trial court engaged in an 

effort to simply equalize income . . . rather than going through the 

traditional needs analysis,” and concluding that “the trial court 

abused its discretion by failing to enter specific findings on [the 

recipient spouse’s] financial needs and condition”). 

¶19 In this case, the trial court determined that the evidence 

Kawasaki presented at trial was insufficient to allow the court to 

make the findings necessary for an alimony award. In its ruling, 

the court noted that Kawasaki “did not submit a financial 

declaration” at trial, nor did she present any “bank statements” or 

other “documentary evidence regarding her . . . expenses” The 

court—presumably in an effort to locate admitted evidence upon 

which it could rest an imputation of some of Kawasaki’s 

expenses—then noted that Wellman had not submitted a financial 

declaration at trial either, nor had he provided bank statements or 

any “detailed testimony regarding either of the [parties’] monthly 

financial obligations.” Finally, the court discussed Kawasaki’s 
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20210265-CA 11 2023 UT App 11

own testimony at trial, but concluded that her “testimony 

regarding . . . her monthly expenses . . . was inconsistent and 

missing critical information,” and therefore “did not persuade the 

[c]ourt that alimony should continue.” 

¶20 Under the circumstances presented here, we discern no 

abuse of the trial court’s discretion in reaching this conclusion. As 

already noted, Kawasaki’s attempt to place into evidence 

undisclosed bank statements was denied, and after that Kawasaki 

made no real effort to provide the court, at trial, with any concrete 

evidence of her monthly expenses. She did not attempt to submit 

her 2017 financial declaration for the court’s consideration at trial, 

and she did not attempt to provide any testimony about the lineitem expenses on that declaration. And although she had in her 

possession, at trial, a copy of Wellman’s financial declaration, she 

asked Wellman only a few general questions about it, and did not 

attempt to ask him any specific questions about the expense line 

items. The only categories of expenses that she even generally 

discussed, through questioning of witnesses, were housing—as to 

which she testified that she thought a suitable apartment would 

cost “about $2,000” per month—and a vague category her counsel 

referred to as how much it would “cost to live with three kids”—

as to which Wellman offered his view that “$1,000 to $1,500 [per 

month] for daily activities and food” would not be 

“unreasonable.” Against the backdrop of this evidence, we 

consider it far from an abuse of the trial court’s discretion for the 

court to conclude that Kawasaki had failed to carry her burden of 

demonstrating a need for alimony. 

¶21 Kawasaki resists this conclusion on two grounds. First, she 

asserts that the trial court misinterpreted applicable law by 

refusing to even consider her alimony claim after the court ruled 

that the untimely disclosed bank statements were inadmissible. 

Kawasaki correctly argues—as we have explained above—that a 

party’s failure to provide documentation supporting an alimony 

claim is not necessarily fatal, so long as other evidence in the 
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20210265-CA 12 2023 UT App 11

record can support imputation of the necessary expenses, and so 

long as a trial court is willing to exercise its discretion to make 

such imputations. And we acknowledge that certain statements 

by the trial court, during the pretrial discussion about the bank 

statements, may have left the impression that the court was 

refusing to consider Kawasaki’s alimony claim altogether. For 

instance, at one point Wellman’s attorney stated that his 

understanding of Dahl was “that a failure to supply bank 

statements prevents the [c]ourt from actually evaluating” 

Kawasaki’s alimony claim, and the court responded by stating 

that counsel’s argument was “consistent with [its] understanding 

of Dahl.” But later, the court noted that “if there are other 

documents” that could be used to “substantiate [Kawasaki’s]

finances, then you can use those,” and told Kawasaki that she 

could “address alimony with documents that are already in the 

record” and that “if there are records of some kind that would 

support a claim for alimony, then [Kawasaki] can go forward” 

with that claim. And in its written ruling, the court clearly did not 

perceive Kawasaki’s alimony claim as entirely barred by her 

failure to provide documentation; instead, the court evaluated 

that claim against the backdrop of the evidence that had been 

presented at trial. Kawasaki is simply incorrect when she asserts 

that the trial court refused to consider her alimony claim. 

¶22 Second, Kawasaki asserts that the trial court could have, 

and should have, made findings regarding her monthly needs 

from the evidence available in the record. We disagree that the 

evidence could have supported imputation of the full list of 

Kawasaki’s expenses; with regard to most of them, there was 

simply no evidence admitted whatsoever. For instance, there was 

no specific discussion at trial of utility expenses, automobile or 

transportation expenses, entertainment expenses, or clothing 

expenses. Had the trial court attempted to make findings 

regarding such unsupported expenses, it likely would have 

exceeded its discretion. 
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¶23 But a trial court, on this record, could perhaps have 

exercised its discretion to impute to Kawasaki a housing expense 

of $2,000 and a food expense of, say, $1,000. After all, housing and 

food are universal needs, and those figures were discussed at trial 

by both Kawasaki and Wellman and appeared to have been more 

or less undisputed. But while the court perhaps could have

exercised its discretion to impute these two discrete expenses, we 

are not prepared to say that it was an abuse of discretion not to do 

so; after all, the evidence supporting these figures was vague at 

best and unsupported by any documentation. And in any event, 

even if the court had made these two imputations, that would have 

resulted in a determination that Kawasaki’s demonstrated 

monthly expenses were $3,000, a conclusion that would not have 

resulted in an alimony award given that Kawasaki’s net income 

was $2,800 per month and that Wellman had been ordered to pay 

Kawasaki $1,578 per month in child support. See Roberts v. Roberts, 

2014 UT App 211, ¶ 14, 335 P.3d 378 (stating that, “regardless of 

the payor spouse’s ability to pay more, the recipient spouse’s 

demonstrated need must constitute the maximum permissible 

alimony award” (quotation simplified)). Under these 

circumstances, even if the court had reached to assist Kawasaki 

by making these two specific imputations, that effort would not

have resulted in any alimony award to Kawasaki. 

¶24 In some cases, the evidence is solid enough, even without 

proper documentation from the alimony claimant, for a court to 

be able to exercise its discretion to impute at least some of the 

claimant’s expenses, especially basic universal ones like housing 

and food. See Munoz-Madrid, 2018 UT App 95, ¶ 10; see also Dahl, 

2015 UT 79, ¶ 116 (stating that “courts may impute figures”

(emphasis added)). Indeed, in keeping with the purposes of 

alimony, courts should attempt to do so where the evidence and 

equity permit. But in other cases—including this one—the 

evidence is simply not strong enough to support imputation of 

enough expenses to justify an alimony award. See Dahl, 2015 UT 

79, ¶¶ 108–09 (stating that, where the claimant “provided no 
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20210265-CA 14 2023 UT App 11

financial declaration, no supporting financial documentation, and 

no expert testimony,” her “unsubstantiated testimony did not 

satisfy her burden of showing her financial need”). We perceive 

no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s conclusion that, on this 

record, Kawasaki had not borne her burden of demonstrating 

entitlement to alimony. 

CONCLUSION

¶25 As the party seeking an alimony award, Kawasaki bore the 

burden of showing her financial need for such an award. The trial 

court determined that Kawasaki had failed to meet that burden, 

and that conclusion was not an abuse of the court’s discretion. 

¶26 Affirmed.