Opinion ID: 884138
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Assignment of debt related to the family home and David's law practice

Text: We have previously reviewed the findings with regard to the District Court's assignment of debt related to the family home and David's law practice, and have stated our conclusion in Stufft, 276 Mont. 454, 916 P.2d 767. In that case, we rejected David's contention that the distribution was unfair and affirmed the District Court's debt allocation. We stated: We have reviewed the court's assignment of debt and note that the debt assigned to David is either personal to him or to his business. David took out a second mortgage on the family home and incurred further debt to purchase a practice and office building from which he alleges he received $12,000 that he then invested in his current practice. David's current practice, Stufft Law Firm, is an asset of David and we have said that the debts of a business are the responsibility of whomever has the interest in that business. See In re Marriage of Childers (1985), 216 Mont. 125, 127, 700 P.2d 594, 595. Stufft, 276 Mont. at 461, 916 P.2d at 771. Following the original property distribution, in which David was awarded the Stufft law firm and Mayla the family home, David converted to his own use $27,885.56 of the proceeds from the sale of the family home. The District Court, however, did not award any of the proceeds from the sale of the home to David. All of the net proceeds were awarded to Mayla. On appeal, David contends that his conversion of these funds was justified because he used the money to pay off the mortgage on his law practice which, in his opinion, was for the benefit of both Mayla and him. For this reason, David argues, he should be free of any obligation to repay Mayla that amount. The District Court, however, ordered that David repay Mayla the amount which he converted for the benefit of his law practice. Based on our decision in Childers in which we said that the debts of a business are the responsibility of whomever has the interest in that business, we agree with the District Court that it was not unreasonable to assign the debt to finance David's law firm to David since he was the party who received that asset in the marital property distribution. Accordingly, we affirm the District Court's distribution of the debt related to the family home and David's business.