Opinion ID: 2638203
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: We remand to the superior court for reconsideration of whether certain items constitute marital property subject to distribution.

Text: Maureen was the only party to submit a proposed property division at trial. Karsten has appended to his brief on appeal a list of property which he alleges was taken by Maureen and not accounted for at trial. Karsten also argues that his medical coverage should have been included in the property division. But Karsten makes this argument for the first time on appeal. Because, [a]s a general rule, we will not consider arguments for the first time on appeal, [16] we disregard this claim made by Karsten for the first time on appeal. It was not an abuse of discretion for the superior court to consider the property set forth in the exhibits introduced by Maureen to be the universe of the couple's marital property. Karsten also argues that the trial court erred in separately listing and valuing a depth finder and radio as assets when they were attached to the boat as accessories, and in finding two antique clocks to be marital property. But he did not present any evidence with respect to these items at trial or otherwise make any objections to Maureen's characterizations of these items as marital property when given the opportunity at trial. Thus, Karsten has waived this objection on appeal. [17] Karsten did, however, testify that the canoe listed by Maureen was premarital property. Maureen also conceded at trial that the canoe, I didn't remember that . . . exact purchase date . . . Karsten was indicating he had purchased it before marriage so if that . . . is, in fact, the case, then he, obviously, keeps the canoe. That's fine. Exhibit L lists the purchase date of the canoe as 1990?, the year of the parties' marriage. Given that Karsten's testimony was unequivocal and Maureen allowed that she was not sure when the canoe was purchased and that it could have been premarital property, we remand to the superior court to revise its distribution of property to reflect that the canoe was Karsten's premarital property and thus is excluded from the property division. Karsten also argues that the trial court failed to consider various debts when fashioning its property division. But when asked at trial if his debts were incurred post-separation, Karsten stated that [t]he only debt I had before this happened was . . . our mortgage . . . a new truck payment and loans against my life insurance policies and maybe 500 to a thou[sand] . . . on [a] credit card. It was therefore not error for the court to decline to include Karsten's credit card debt as marital debt. It does, however, appear that the trial court failed to consider marital debts with respect to Karsten's life insurance and the carpet that was installed during the marriage. Karsten testified about both of these at trial, and neither was included in the final distribution of assets. On remand, the superior court should consider whether these should have been included in the distribution of property as marital debts. Karsten also claims that the superior court erred in classifying certain of Maureen's debts as marital debt. Maureen testified at trial that Keefe loan No. 2 was given to Maureen after the couple's separation and that the MBNA Visa card reflects a debt for attorney's fees incurred by Maureen after the separation. The superior court's characterization of these as marital debts in the face of uncontested testimony from Maureen that they were not is error, and on remand the trial court should remove these from the marital property distribution.