Opinion ID: 1651797
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: whether the chancellor erred in the exclusion as a marital asset the portion of james's pension plan which overlapped the sixteen years of marriage.

Text: ¶ 19. Judy contends that a portion of the appreciation in value of James's Merchants and Marines Bank pension plan was a marital asset, because it was a direct result of years of service and employment during the marriage. A valuation expert showed the value of James's pension plan to be $7,298.25 at the time of marriage. As of April 1, 2007, the value was $180,484.44. Thus, Judy asserts that the chancellor erred in finding that the more-than-$170,000 increase was not a marital asset. ¶ 20. James argues that Judy stipulated by and through counsel and in her own testimony that the pension was separate property to which James was entitled. James further argues that, even without Judy's concession, he was entitled to his pension, and that the chancellor did not err in ruling that the pension was separate property. James asserts that his fifteen years of service to the bank occurred prior to the marriage and entitled him to the maximum monthly benefit upon his retirement. Moreover, James maintains that neither he nor the bank made any contributions to the pension during the marriage; thus any appreciation in value was a passive appreciation and not due to the efforts of either party. James cites Carrow v. Carrow, 642 So.2d 901, 906-07 (Miss.1994), in which this Court held that the appreciated value of a husband's car collection was marital property because the renovation and repair work was performed by both spouses; therefore, the efforts of both contributed to the appreciation in value. James also cites Franks v. Franks, 759 So.2d 1164, 1166-68 (Miss. 1999), in which the converse also was trueincome produced by a spouse's separate investments remains separate when no active effort by either spouse contributed to its growth or appreciation. ¶ 21. James's Motion for Reconsideration, New Trial, Alteration or Amendment of Judgment or Relief from Judgment was supported by an affidavit from the President of Merchants & Marine Bank, in which the bank president stated that the bank had stopped funding James's pension plan in 1984, five years prior to the 1989 marriage. Following a hearing on this motion, in which Judy's counsel conceded that the pension plan was James's nonmarital property, the trial court, in its Supplemental Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, found that this concession necessitated a reclassification of the asset as James's nonmarital property. ¶ 22. Assets acquired or accumulated during the course of a marriage are subject to equitable division unless it can be shown by proof that such assets are attributable to one of the parties' separate estates prior to the marriage or outside the marriage. Hemsley, 639 So.2d at 914. Given that James showed proof that his pension was fully funded prior to the marriage, and given that Judy's counsel, both in a letter to James's counsel and during oral arguments at the hearing, conceded that the pension was nonmarital property, the chancellor did not commit manifest error in reclassifying the pension as James's nonmarital property. Accordingly, this argument is without merit.