Source: https://familylaw.typepad.com/virginiafamilylawappeals/procedure_circuit_courts/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 05:48:50+00:00

Document:
Absolutely nothing noteworthy or at all surprising was decided in the summary affirmance of Clifton Antony Grant v. Toni Gail Walters, Court of Appeals 07/03/2018.
The Court of Appeals upholds a refusal to reconsider a ruling based on after-discovered evidence which was not offered to the court properly, nor stipulated to -- the wife's lawyer said he had documents in front of him, but did not hand them up. And the descriptions he gave of their contents were too iffy and speculative to prove that they would be material evidence that would change the result of the trial. Henderson v. Henderson, 5/15/2018, Record No. 1402-17-2. (A separate opinion issued the same day, with a different case number, addressed husband's appeal of various rulings.) The opinion in "1407" addressed so many different issues that I am describing them in separate posts.
In order for after-discovered evidence to be admissible, the record must establish that: (1) the evidence [was] discovered after the record was closed; (2) it could not have been obtained prior to the closing of the record through the exercise of reasonable diligence; (3) it is not merely cumulative, corroborative, or collateral; and (4) it is material, and as such, should produce an opposite result. Joynes v. Payne, 36 Va. App. 401, 418, 551 S.E.2d 10, 18 (2001).
The party seeking to reopen the record bears the burden of proof. Williams v. People’s Life Ins. Co., 19 Va. App. 530, 533, 452 S.E.2d 881, 883 (1995). Whether to grant such a motion rests within the sound discretion of the circuit court. Shooltz v. Shooltz, 27 Va. App. 264, 269, 498 S.E.2d 437, 439 (1998). ... when the circuit court denies such a motion, “the aggrieved party must make a proper proffer of the [evidence] to preserve the ruling for appellate review.” Klein v. Klein, 11 Va. App. 155, 160, 396 S.E.2d 866, 869 (1990). Such a proffer “may consist of a unilateral representation of counsel, if unchallenged, or a mutual stipulation of the proffered [evidence]. Absent such representation of counsel, or stipulation, the ruling will not be considered on appeal.” Id.
Raising this issue in a written motion and oral argument, while the court still had jurisdiction to do something about it, was sufficient to preserve the issue for appeal.
The Court of Appeals upheld a refusal to overturn a grandparent adoption for fraud in Castillo v. Bell, unpub. 11/14/17. The mother was served by publication, but learned of the adoption in the same year that it happened, 2010. She filed to overturn it in 2016. Code § 63.2-1216 prohibits ANY attack on an adoption judgment more than six months after it is made, for any reason, including fraud; but the Court had found it unconstitutional as applied to a non-English-speaking mother in an egregious fraud case, F.E. v. G.F.M., 35 Va. App. 648, 547 S.E.2d 531 (2001) (en banc). But in this case the trial court had found no evidence of fraud, and that the grandmother had done nothing to prevent her from learning of the adoption, and the mother had not appealed those findings.
Castillo endorsed the final order as “Seen and objected to” without further explanation. She did not file any post-trial motions. The written statement of facts does not include the parties’ closing arguments or objections to the trial court’s ruling.
Code § 20-107.3(C) applies only to the transfer or division of property without any reference to the satisfaction of a monetary award. A transfer or division of property to satisfy a monetary award would be controlled by Code § 20-107.3(D). These two statutes address completely different situations in the equitable distribution statutory scheme.

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