Source: https://levinedisputeresolution.com/divorce-mediation-blog/tag/divorce_mediation/
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 23:22:30+00:00

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The Massachusetts Bar Association recently endorsed a set of “Civility Guidelines for Family Law Attorneys”. It is amazing to us that in 2017 this project should have been necessary, but we have no doubt of it; and the ten points are both simple and profound.
Wait your turn – don’t interrupt or shout.
Be honest – in verbal and written word.
Focus on the facts in issue.
Negotiate in good faith after full disclosure.
Do not use court in a revengeful manner.
Sometimes the truest things shouldn’t have to be said – be bear reminder nonetheless.
The Appeals Court’s recent Ludwig v. Lamee-Ludwig approaches the intersection of unvested stock options and double counting, colloquially known as “double dipping”, in divorce litigation. Relying on the Supreme Judicial Court’s (SJC) Bacanti v. Morton, they got it right. But, was the SJC precedent correctly decided? It is worth revisiting.
Thus, as we read it, §34 requires (“Do it”) the trial court to include the enumerated, but unlimited, forms of compensation or other benefits within the marital estate, but it permits (“Do it if/how you think it appropriate”) the trial judge to assign them between the parties as she sees fit. Why would the statute drafters have used two different modal verbs in the same sentence, if they were not to connote different meanings?
Yet, the Baccanti court equated the two by concluding that the trial court may include unvested options in the marital estate. May = shall. Think: judicial amendment.
None of this made much practical difference in 2001, as Baccanti took hold in asset divisions. After all, the SJC’s “time rule” sensibly divided granted but not yet vested options in a way that distinguished between those that were tightly related to the marital enterprise during which both parties contributed, from those for which the connection to mutual marital efforts was diluted by the passage of post-divorce time. Who cared if the time formula technically excluded some options from the estate, or if it simply assigned them disproportionately between the spouses because of the declining nexus with marital efforts?
Now, it matters, the intangible becoming material, with unvested options ripening into disposable cash.
The central holding of Ludwig is that the income generated by the post-divorce exercise of stock options granted during marriage, but excluded from marital property at divorce by application of Baccanti, may be tapped for payment of alimony (and, perforce, child support) because it does not constitute a double counting, let alone one that may be reversibly inequitable. (The law does not bar double dipping per se, but only if it is deemed inequitable.) The SJC obliquely suggests that alimony exposure for income arising from later vested options that were deemed to be marital property at divorce, presents a more compelling case of double counting.
The Baccanti holding made Ludwig an easy case for the Appeals Court to decide. But, had the higher court stuck to statutory interpretation in 2001, rather than effective revision, the current case might, and we think should, have been more challenging.
Intent in automatic restraining order violations.
A phrase search for M.G.L., ch. 208, §34’s “opportunities… for future acquisition of income and assets” in a data base will turn up many Massachusetts cases. But, they predominantly concern exclusion of trust interests as divisible marital assets, relegating them as “mere expectancies” that the court may nonetheless consider as a future economic opportunity.
…the foundational reality of the of the parties’ financial circumstances throughout their marriage was that their life-style relied to a significant degree on a fairly steady stream of such largess, and it would ignore that reality to anticipate that the husband would not continue to benefit from similar generosity following dissolution of the marriage.
While in litigation, and in divorce mediation, we see the issue surface regularly, the focus and clarity of the statement is significant for its strength. The lack of factual detail limits the direct impact of the case on future deliberations, but one may certainly expect to see this kind of persuasive characterization in other cases.
As a practical matter, the relative liquidity of asset distributions is a part of most divorce negotiations when there are diverse assets to divide. Most frequently, it arises in three contexts: closely held businesses, wherein disposable cash is scarce from which to fund a payout to the non-owner; cases in which a primary residence is the predominant asset; and where retirement funds present qualification, penalty and age/timing challenges. But, we recall few cases that broadly present illiquidity as an indicator of comparative “economically straitened circumstances". This window into the appellate panel’s thinking reflects a sophisticated view of family economics that is refreshing.
Supplemental Probate Court Rule 411, the so-called automatic restraining order, has precious little case law development. In Heytek v. Duncan, the wife removed $40,000 from the marital estate without the benefit of an authorizing order,or agreement. Nor could she excuse the withdrawal as a permitted usage (legal fees, business expense or investment cost), under the rule’s parameters. The husband sought enforcement by civil contempt and, in defense, wife argued that she did not intend to violate the order.
Finding no requirement of intent in a civil enforcement action, the Appeals Court upheld the trial judge’s contempt adjudication. With the order deemed unequivocal and the violation undoubted, the judge and the Appeals Court deemed wife's state of mind immaterial. While this unpublished opinion is not precedent, it surely is a warning shot to those who pay too little heed to the automatic restraining order, including counsel.
… a final and complete settlement of all matters relating to the interest and obligations of each [party] with respect to all future property matters, including but not limited to alimony, support, maintenance, property assignment, and the rights of the parties under G.L., c. 208, §34, as amended, in the event of divorce.
The appellate panel tossed out two of the three clauses, which spoke only of divorce, consigned as surplusage, unworthy of consideration, despite the “agreement’s caption referring to G.L., c. 208, §34”, the divorce property division statute.
Do you think that the parties’ might have used the word “death” somewhere, if they intended to cover that contingency? Or “estate”? Bequest”? Maybe, “inheritance”? Even “survivor”?
The result is that a widow, with no hint of pending divorce, or even marital strain, must now answer to her sister-in-law (the estate’s personal representative) for “several furnishings and personal belongings” that she removed from her marital home, in part, for alleged violation of a premarital agreement that was to all appearances, extinguished by her husband’s death.
We have no quarrel with the Appeals Court remand on the grounds that a violation of G. L. c. 190B, § 3-709 may have occurred, or that the alleged facts were also sufficient to state claims of a conversion, an unjust enrichment, and a constructive trust. But the Appeals Court is makes unnecessary mischief by inferring intent that doesn’t appear in, or even between the lines of, the contract.

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