Title: Thiel v. Thiel
Citation: 230 Neb. 806, 433 N.W.2d 539
Docket Number: 433
State: Nebraska
Issuer: Nebraska Supreme Court
Date: January 6, 1989

433 N.W.2d 539 (1989) 230 Neb. 806 Diane Rolfsmeyer THIEL, Appellant, v. Michael Dean THIEL, Appellee. No. 87-433. Supreme Court of Nebraska. January 6, 1989. Dorothy A. Walker, of Mowbray, Chapin &amp; Walker, P.C., Lincoln, for appellant. Con M. Keating, of Bruckner, O'Gara, Keating, Sievers &amp; Hendry, P.C., Lincoln, for appellee. BOSLAUGH, WHITE, CAPORALE, and SHANAHAN, JJ., and JAMES MURPHY, District Judge. PER CURIAM. This is a dissolution action in which the petitioner wife has appealed. She assigns as error the trial court's failure to award attorney fees and the court's failure to award her a monetary allowance for filing a joint tax return with her husband. She further assigns error in the trial court's failure to compensate her for paying more than 50 percent of family expenses. The parties were married in February 1985, and separated 14 months later. No children were born of the marriage, but five children from the wife's former marriages resided with the parties. Two children from the husband's former marriage were frequent visitors. In 1986, the husband's annual income was $26,000, and the wife earned $38,000. She claimed an oral agreement by which each promised to pay one-half of the family expenses. The husband testified that no such agreement was made. He further asserted that his entire income, with the exception of $500 monthly child support payments, was contributed for family expenses. He further testified that during this short-term marriage his income was deposited in a joint checking account, from which his wife paid family expenses. The standard for reviewing asserted error in the division of property and awarding of attorney fees in dissolution cases is set forth in Guggenmos v. Guggenmos, 218 Neb. 746, 359 N.W.2d 87 (1984): Id. at 748-49, 359 N.W.2d at 90. A review of the record indicates that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in *540 failing to provide a monetary allowance to the wife for her contribution to family expenses. Nor did he abuse his discretion in refusing to make an allowance for the wife's voluntary act in filing a joint tax return with her husband. The refusal to allow attorney fees for the benefit of the wife, whose annual income exceeded her husband's by $12,000, was also within the sound discretion of the trial court. Accordingly, the decree which was entered herein is affirmed. AFFIRMED.