Court Opinion

ID: 9543513
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:46:02.546061+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:30.398489
License: Public Domain

JACKSON, Judge
(dissenting):
I depart from the majority at two points. First, I am concerned that remand of this case will impose an unnecessary burden on the judicial system and the parties. The remand will require a new trial unless the judge who originally heard this matter, former District Court Judge Jay E. Banks, can be recalled from the ranks of the retired. Another trial judge will find it impossible to dredge from the depths of the record all the specific findings ordered by the majority-
Secondly, we need not impose any burden upon Judge Banks or one of his colleagues in this case. The law is clear in Utah that, in order to permit appellate review, a trial court’s distribution of marital assets whose values are contested by the parties should be based upon specific written findings as to what those values are. Jones v. Jones, 700 P.2d 1072, 1074 (Utah 1985). In Jones, the Court concluded that the remedy of remand was appropriate because “[i]f the trial court accepted one set of values, the [appellant] wife was clearly awarded too little; if another set was adopted, it is possible that the trial court did not abuse its discretion.” Id.
Four months after Jones, the Utah Supreme Court decided Olson v. Olson, 704 P.2d 564 (Utah 1985), in which the appellant ex-wife challenged the amount of alimony awarded her. She claimed that the *90trial court had failed to consider her financial condition and needs, one of three factors that must be considered by the trial court in fixing the amount of alimony. Id. at 566. The unanimous Court agreed that the trial court’s findings on this factor were inadequate, but it did not end its analysis there and remand to the district court. Instead, it accepted her evidence on these issues as true and reached her substantive claim, ultimately affirming the amount of the trial court alimony award:
Turning to the record in the absence of sufficient findings, we find conflicting evidence on some factual issues material to a determination of the wife’s financial condition and needs. Nevertheless, even accepting as true, for purposes of review, the [appellant] wife’s evidence on these issues, we find no abuse of discretion in the amount of alimony awarded.
Id. at 567. This approach to the disposition of the appeal makes sense. The trial court’s findings must be supported by the evidence. Accordingly, the best an appellant could do — if adequate findings were made at trial or on remand — is to have the court accept his or her evidence on the disputed point. If even that version of the facts does not justify disturbing the trial court’s judgment, then there is no reason for the appellate court to send the case back for more specific findings that will not ultimately change the outcome of the case.
The Utah Supreme Court applied this commonsense approach again in Claus v. Claus, 727 P.2d 184 (Utah 1986). As in the case before us, the appellant husband in Claus challenged the trial court’s distribution of marital property. He complained that the trial court had failed to make findings as to the values of each party’s premarital assets and the increase of those values during the marriage. The trial court had totalled the equities of all the parties’ properties and then awarded nearly half of the total to each. Id. at 185. In its per curiam opinion, the Utah Supreme Court did not automatically remand for specific findings on the disputed values of individual assets. It looked to the entire record and affirmed the trial court’s property distribution, concluding that it was “eminently fair” to the appellant. Id.
Subsequent to Olson and Claus, the Utah Supreme Court explicitly held that the failure to make findings on all material issues is reversible error unless the facts in the record are clear, uncontroverted, and capable of supporting only a finding in favor of the judgment. Acton v. Deliran, 737 P.2d 996, 999 (Utah 1987). In applying the Acton standard in appeals challenging the property distribution in a divorce decree, the Court has not indicated that the sensible appellate practice used in Olson is to be thrown out the window, resulting in meaningless and burdensome remands to the district courts.
In Gardner v. Gardner, 748 P.2d 1076 (Utah 1988), for example, the appellant wife challenged the trial court’s complete failure to assign values to, and to distribute as marital property, the husband’s retirement account and medical assets where the parties’ figures varied considerably. The Court remanded Gardner for the entry of specific findings, concluding that it could not perform its reviewing function and determine whether the parties’ property was equitably distributed without more detailed findings regarding the valuation of assets. Id. at 1080. Just as it had in Jones, the Court pointed out that the award to respondent Mr. Gardner of all his retirement funds and medical assets might ultimately turn out to be proper and equitable if the trial court adopted his evidence as to their value. Id. But the appellate court might, presumably, agree with appellant Mrs. Gardner that the trial court’s property award was inequitable if the trial court findings adopted her evidence of their values.
No such problem is presented by this case. Even if we accept appellant’s version of what the value of the marital estate and the individual asset valuations should have been, the overall marital property distribution is eminently equitable to him. Therefore, additional findings are not needed to support affirmance of the trial court’s award.
*91The majority unfortunately elevates form over substance by slavishly and, I believe, misguidedly applying Acton, without regard for appellant’s only substantive issue on appeal, namely, whether the trial court’s apportionment of the marital property “was clearly unjust or a clear abuse of discretion.” Gardner, 748 P.2d at 1078. The majority insists on having additional and more specific findings in order to understand the trial court’s ultimate total of $228,099 in marital property, one-half of which was awarded to each party. All they really want are some intermediate mathematical calculations.1 To justify their remand, my colleagues have clothed this case in the raiment of complexity. “[E]ven Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Matthew 6:29. But we need not undress the entire record to expose the equity of the trial court’s ultimate marital property finding.
Judge Banks’s findings contain an orderly, step-by-step route of factual conclusions that leads to the ultimate disposition without detour. Finding 6 identifies Mrs. Carlton’s premarital property, which the court awarded to her. Finding 13 valued her property at $27,228. Finding 7 identifies Mr. Carlton’s premarital property, which the court awarded to him; no value was fixed. Findings 8 through 12 identify the properties which the parties acquired during the course of their marriage and make some specific offsetting awards, leaving an adjusted marital estate of $228,099.2 A total of $144,277 was awarded to Mrs. Carlton, i.e., $114,049 (one-half the adjusted marital estate) plus her premarital property of $27,228. In Finding 14, the court subtracted from this figure $12,041 in assets she took at the time of separation, leaving her a balance of $129,236. The remaining marital assets are identified as specific bank and investment accounts with fixed values from which Mrs. Carlton received the balance of her marital property award, including $99,124.29 from their E.F. Hutton account.3
Viewed in light of the values assigned by Mr. Carlton, the trial court’s property distribution is patently equitable. Appellant elected to use values calculated as of the date of the parties’ separation, although assets are generally valued as of the time of the divorce decree. See Berger v. Berger, 713 P.2d 695, 697 (Utah 1985). Mr. Carlton’s values were submitted via Exhibit 35D, consisting of underlying itemized schedules summarized onto a front sheet. His summary valued his premarital property at $761,925 at the time of marriage, increasing to $837,732 at separation, for a total $75,807 increase during the marriage. But, assigning his specified values to the assets the court awarded him yields a total value of $889,000.4 Thus computed, he received $127,000 more than his premarital value. This compares favorably with the court’s award to him of $114,049, one-half of the adjusted marital estate.
*92Acceptance of Mr. Carlton’s own values reveals no serious inequity or abuse of discretion in the property distribution as far as he is concerned. Although Mrs. Carlton might have some reason to complain, she has not cross-appealed to challenge the trial court’s award.5 The findings show that the trial court considered each item of property. The premarital property was delineated and awarded respectively to each party. Hers was assigned a total value; his was not. Individual valuations of their premarital assets were not material since the ultimate issue was the equitable division of marital property, not premarital property.
Where the asset values claimed by appellant at trial show he received an equitable share of the marital property and no clear abuse of discretion is otherwise proven, we ought to defer to the trial court’s property distribution. The judgment of the trial court should be affirmed.

. The majority states, "we cannot determine how the court arrived at its conclusion that the marital assets had appreciated by $255,327 during the marriage.” The trial court valued Mrs. Carlton’s premarital property at $27,228 and awarded it to her. The majority has included her premarital property in the "appreciation." The trial court, in finding 13, found a marital estate of $228,099 and awarded Mrs. Carlton one-half, i.e., $114,048.

. The values used by Judge Banks in reaching this total are contained in Mrs. Carlton’s Exhibit 14P, her itemization of the "assets of parties” and her asserted values for each asset, totalling $403,000. She excluded her premarital property and his premarital Bear Lake home. Judge Banks subtracted $175,000 from her total, comprised of the following items: $38,000 (for the K Street home awarded to him as premarital property); $10,000 (for the Saratoga, Wyoming lot awarded to her); $14,000 (for the 1985 Lincoln awarded to him); and $113,000 (for the value at trial of the E.F. Hutton account created from his premarital savings). The $228,000 balance ($403,000 minus $175,000) divided equally between the parties represents the value of all the remaining marital assets, including a one-half interest in land in Carbon County, numerous liquid asset accounts, and several bronzes and sculptures.

. As acknowledged by the majority, Mr. Carlton testified that the E.F. Hutton account balance was $113,000 at time at trial. Mrs. Carlton’s evidence fixed the same value.

. This figure gave Mr. Carlton the benefit of a claimed $100,000 loss of value on his Bear Lake home, i.e., from $300,000 to $200,000 during the marriage.

. The property distribution is also eminently fair when reviewed on the basis of marital income. The majority identifies a seven-year marriage and acknowledges that Mr. Carlton "earned over $100,000.00 gross annual income during most of the marriage." Their tax returns show that his adjusted gross income ranged from a high of $117,000 to a low of $88,000. The parties maintained a frugal lifestyle, except for regular business trips that were expensed through his CPA business. Most of the approximately $700,000 of income earned during the marriage was invested in liquid assets. The court found an accumulation of only $228,000. I find it inconceivable that the remaining $472,-000 of income was spent by these two people for consumables during their short marriage. Mrs. Carlton was awarded no alimony. Her $114,-000 property award, about which she has not complained, appears fair, equitable and even generous to Mr. Carlton's side of the ledger.