Court Opinion

ID: 9597622
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:01:05.150621+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:01:58.358500
License: Public Domain

GARRISON, P. J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with the majority opinion as it relates to Father’s appeal and Point IV of Mother’s appeal. I also agree with the majority’s conclusion that the trial court erred in arriving at the value of Alton Farm Supply. I respectfully dissent, however, from the conclusions of the majority opinion about the remaining issues relating to the division of property. I also do not believe that the division of marital property will be made fair and equitable with the directions to the trial court to add $46,242.50 to the marital property awarded to both Mother and Father by reason of the re-valuation of Alton Farm Supply.
Father was awarded marital property valued by the trial court at $221,063 after deducting debts against the real estate awarded to him. This included Alton Farm Supply to which the trial court assigned a net value of $50,000, and the Arkansas property with a net value of $36,379. It also included 535 shares of Wal-Mart stock and “Rite Aid bonds & Onyx Roth 136 shares” valued at $44,400 constituting all of the stocks and bonds owned by the parties that were classified by the trial court as marital property. Although there was no promissory note in existence, the trial court ordered Father to pay “any and all debts and loans owing to his father in the approximate amount of [$20,000].” By deducting that “debt” Father was awarded property with a net value of at least $201,063.1
In comparison, Mother was awarded marital property with a net value of $156,179. That marital property award included $50,000 of the $55,000 that had been in the lock box, but which did not exist at the time of trial. In addition, Mother was awarded non-marital property valued at $131,100 which included 2600 shares of Wal-Mart stock valued at $130,000. That stock, one-half of which was registered jointly to Mother and her mother and one-half of which was registered to Mother as custodian for her child by another marriage, was purchased with funds inherited by Mother or with money she earned prior to her marriage to Father.
First, I do not believe that Mother should have been charged with the $50,000 from the lock box that no longer existed at the time of trial. As a general rule, if a marital asset does not exist at the time of trial, the trial court cannot value and include that asset in its division of marital property. Conrad v. Conrad, 76 S.W.3d *894305, 314 (Mo.App. W.D.2002). As an exception to the general rule, where a spouse is found to be secreting or to have squandered marital assets in anticipation of the marriage being dissolved, the court may hold that spouse liable for the value of those assets. Id.
“[A] spouse claiming that a marital asset has been secreted or squandered by the other spouse in anticipation of a dissolution proceeding must introduce evidence demonstrating that there existed at some point a marital asset which is being secreted or was squandered.” Farnsworth v. Farnsworth, 108 S.W.3d 834, 841 (Mo.App. W.D.2003) (quoting Conrad, 76 S.W.3d at 315). Once that evidence has been introduced, while the burden of proof remains with the spouse claiming that the other has secreted or squandered the marital asset, “the burden of going forward with the evidence shifts to the other spouse to ‘account’ for the claimed secreted or squandered asset by presenting evidence as to its whereabouts or disposition.” Id. (quoting Conrad, 76 S.W.3d at 315).
Here, Father contended that Mother had “squandered and expended” what he believed amounted to $70,000 in cash in the lock box, and asked that it be assessed against her in the division of marital assets. He acknowledged knowing that there were large sums of money “stashed” around the house, and sometime around May 2000 he encouraged Mother that they should obtain a safe in which to keep the money. He said that when they counted it there was “right at $70,000” in cash that was put into the safe; that he later discovered that Mother had taken the money out of the safe and placed it in a safety deposit box; and that the cash in the safety deposit box was inventoried as $54,995 on April 23, 2001.
The trial court did not make a finding that Mother had secreted or squandered any of the money from the lock box. Rather, the trial court awarded Mother “[a]ll of the marital property in her possession as shown on the attached Personal Property Schedule” that included “[clash in Safety Deposit Box @ inventory ($55,-000.00)” which the court valued at $50,000. The $5,000 variance apparently reflected the fact that the court had ordered Mother to deliver $5,000 of that money to Father for application to his attorney’s fees.
Mother admitted at trial that at one point prior to the separation, there was more money either in the safe at home or in the lock box. Prior to the inventory of the lock box she and Father equally contributed to an investment of approximately $46,000 in stocks. Mother’s $23,000 for that investment came from money in the lock box and from her beauty salon account. These were apparently the stocks and investments valued at $44,400 awarded to Father as marital property.
With reference to the remaining money, she introduced an exhibit at trial demonstrating her expenditures over the period of June 25, 2001 through July 5, 2002. She testified that Father, with minor exceptions, provided no financial support for eight months before he filed the petition for dissolution. After the petition was filed in January 2001 he stopped providing any money to the family even though he continued to live in the family home until June 24, 2001. In order to pay the family expenses, Mother explained that she had to draw on the “family account” for a while, then had to take money out of her hair salon account, and finally had to resort to the money in the lock box. The expenses she faced during that interval included monthly house payments of $396 on the marital home; payments of $687 on the house in Arkansas that was vacant for a year; health insurance on the family in *895amounts that increased over time from $214 to $827 per month (this expense totaled over $4,300 for the family which included Father); $3,668.68 for furniture after Father took items from the home when he moved out including all of the furniture out of the youngest son’s room, exercisers, half of the sectional sofa, all of the TV, VCR and DVD equipment, the entertainment center, and the freezer they had just filled with meat. Mother had also expended $25,000 for attorneys fees by the final days of the trial, all of which came from the money in the lock box.2 Other expenses included approximately $4,700 for counseling, testing and expenses of experts to testify at trial. In addition, Mother had the expenses of groceries, utilities, dental care, automobile upkeep and the other ordinary expenses of living. By the end of the trial, all of the money in the lock box had been expended. There was no evidence that Mother had spent any of the money in the lock box on anything other than that which would be considered ordinary expenses under the circumstances. Similar expenditures have been held to be legitimate expenditures of marital assets. Farnsworth, 108 S.W.3d at 842; Kester v. Kester, 108 S.W.3d 213, 222 (Mo.App. S.D. 2003); Kirkwood v. Kirkwood, 77 S.W.3d 675, 681 (Mo.App. S.D.2002); Wright v. Wright, 1 S.W.3d 52, 62 (Mo.App. W.D. 1999). Certainly, there is no evidence that Mother secreted any of the money from the lock box or spent it on extravagant purchases.
The legitimacy of expenditures for such expenses out of marital funds is affirmed by the fact that here Father was not charged with the $16,000 he spent on attorneys fees before the trial was eonclud-ed, which presumably included $5,000 Mother was ordered to deliver to him from the lock box funds for application to his attorney’s fees. Inexplicably, Mother, however, was charged by the trial court with the $25,000 she expended from the lock box money on attorney’s fees and $3,000 in expenses relating to expert witnesses. A review of the record in this case indicates that the attorney’s fees incurred by Mother do not appear to have been unreasonable, especially considering the difficulty encountered by her attorney in attempting to obtain discovery and the time consumed responding to and countering the multifarious contentions, arguments and objections of Father’s attorney at all stages of the proceedings. Examples include Father’s contention that he should receive one-half of Mother’s admittedly non-marital shares in Walmart, and the fact that his failure to comply with discovery requests resulted in numerous motions and court appearances. In fact, Father never did provide discovery concerning some straightforward items including some of the financial records of the business about which there were substantial contentions. Under these circumstances, I am unable to formulate a reasonable answer to the obvious question of why Mother was charged with marital funds spent for attorney’s fees while Father was not?
The unfairness of charging Mother with the $50,000 from the lock box is also demonstrated by the fact that although Father was awarded the property in Arkansas, Mother was charged with money spent from the lock box satisfying at least $11,500 in mortgage payments on that property that were not covered by rental *896income.3 Likewise, the lock box money with which Mother was charged was partially used to purchase stocks that were all awarded to Father.
In my opinion, Mother satisfied her burden in going forward with the evidence to explain the disposition of the money from the lock box. In fact, our Supreme Court has held that it would not be appropriate to order a spouse to reimburse the other spouse for marital funds that had been withdrawn from bank accounts, certificates of deposit and life insurance policies where there was no evidence that they had been secreted or squandered in anticipation of the dissolution. Hoffmann v. Hoffmann, 676 S.W.2d 817, 828 (Mo. banc 1984). Likewise, it was held in Foraker v. Foraker, 133 S.W.3d 84, 104 (Mo.App. W.D. 2004), that unless the party alleging that the marital assets have been squandered presents evidence of it, no finding of squandering or reimbursement will result. Like the Hoffmann and Foraker cases, there is no evidence here that Mother has secreted or squandered the lock box money and I believe it was error to charge her with those funds in the division of marital property.
Even though I think it was error to charge Mother with the lock box funds, it would not automatically follow that the division of marital property was erroneous. The trial court has broad discretion in dividing marital property and its decision in that regard will be interfered with only if the division is so unduly weighted in favor of one party that it amounts to an abuse of discretion. Kester, 108 S.W.3d at 218. “The resulting division of marital property need not be equal, although it must be equitable after taking into account the factors enumerated in [S]ection 452.330.1 and any other relevant factors.” M4
Aside from Mother’s failure to report all of her earnings on income tax returns, which cannot be condoned, the fact is that these parties had accumulated assets largely through Mother’s industry, thrift and dedication to that task. The evidence indicated that Father did not share these characteristics of saving money. For example, two years before the trial of this case, Mother gave Father $3,000 he needed in order to keep the farm supply business running, but two weeks later he was wanting to go skiing in Colorado because he needed a “break.” There was also evidence that Father left her once before, taking with him $8,000 representing all the money she had saved in a home safe, and that he invested it in his father’s name for the benefit of his son by another marriage. Mother never saw that money again. Mother also testified about her attempts to get Father to jointly put money into a savings account. After a few months, she discovered that he had removed the money *897he had deposited. Generally, Mother practiced thrift by, among other things, buying clothes at garage sales, canning food, drying clothes outside rather than running a dryer, using an economy car, buying shoes for $10, and buying cheaper groceries. She saw these measures as necessary because Father had insisted that he wanted to retire at age 55, and she was afraid that if she did not accumulate money that was safe from his grasp, he would leave again with the money as he had done before.
I also note that in the division of marital property the trial court assessed a total value of $1,524 to Mother’s bank accounts in awarding them to her, but made no finding as to value of “all funds in [Father’s] personal and business checking and savings accounts” awarded to him. Additionally, there is no indication that accounts receivable of Alton Farm Supply were considered in valuing and awarding that business to Father, although he testified that at one point in the trial they were $7,000 to $7,500. These obviously would have the effect of increasing the value of the marital property awarded to Father and increasing the disparity between that awarded to him and to Mother by an unknown amount.
Excluding the $50,000 of lock box money that I believe the trial court incorrectly charged to Mother, the trial court awarded her marital property with a net value (after deducting debts also assigned to her) of $106,179. Father, on the other hand, was awarded marital property with a net value of $201,063. This is to be adjusted by adding $46,242.50 in value to the marital property awarded to each. Nevertheless, Father received almost 62% of those marital assets and Mother received just over 38%, a result I believe to be neither fair nor equitable based on the facts of this case.
Granted, Mother also received non-marital property including Wal-Mart stock valued at $130,000, and the trial court is to consider the value of non-marital property set aside to each spouse before equitably dividing the marital property, A court may not, however, consider the non-marital property to such an extent that it has a substantial material impact on the overall division of marital property. In re Marriage of Woodson, 92 S.W.3d 780, 785 (Mo. banc 2003); Foraker, 133 S.W.3d at 103. Even if the trial court, without saying so, considered the distribution of Mother’s admittedly non-marital property in valuing the assets awarded to each spouse, Mother would still only have received $35,116 more in assets than Father. Under the circumstances of this case, to justify the division of marital property ordered by the trial court by reason of Mother’s receipt of her non-marital property would result in the non-marital property having a substantial impact on the overall division of marital property contrary to cases such as Foraker, 133 S.W.3d at 103.
Finally, I believe that Mother’s inability to obtain compliance with reasonable discovery requests should also be considered. During these proceedings, Mother experienced a multitude of difficulties in obtaining responses to discovery requests, especially those relating to the financial records necessary to present all of the relevant evidence to the trial court concerning marital property. Even threats from the trial court were unsuccessful in achieving compliance. An outline of the record is necessary to understand the pervasiveness and continuing nature of those difficulties.
May 29, 2001: Mother served interrogatories and a request for production of documents.
June 12, 2001: Father filed general objections to all of Mother’s interrogate-*898ries alleging that they were duplica-tive of earlier discovery provided to Mother’s previous attorney.5
July 11, 2001: Mother filed a motion for sanctions, noting Father’s failure to answer the interrogatories or respond to the request for production and requesting that a specific time be set by the trial court for Husband to comply with the discovery and, upon the failure to do so, to strike his pleadings and enter judgment by default.
August 23, 2001: The trial court denied Father’s objections to Mother’s interrogatories as well as Mother’s motion for sanctions, but entered an order giving Father “30 days to answer.”
October 30, 2001: Mother filed another motion for sanctions, noting Father’s failure to comply with the earlier order to comply with the discovery requests by September 23, 2001.
December 6, 2001: Mother’s attorney faxed a notice to appear on December 11, 2001 to review pending motions in order to expedite them ruling.
December 11, 2001: The trial court denied Mother’s motion for sanctions. Mother contends that this denial was based on representations by Father’s attorney that the answers to interrogatories and responses to the request for production had been forwarded to Mother’s attorney. The record before this court contains a certificate of service signed by Father’s attorney certifying that the answers to Mother’s interrogatories and responses to her requests for production were mailed to Mother’s attorney on November 20, 2001. That certificate was not file-stamped by the clerk of the trial court until December 12, 2001, the day after the trial court was told that the responses had already been forwarded. In filings with the trial court, Mother’s attorney represented that the responses to her discovery requests were not received until December 17, 2001, twenty-seven days after Father’s attorney certified that he mailed them.
December 18, 2001: Mother filed yet another motion for sanctions specifying the evasive and incomplete responses to her interrogatories, the fact that Father had still made no written response to the request for production and had, in fact, produced documents in response to only one of nineteen requests.
February 15, 2002: The parties appeared by counsel and the trial court made a docket entry, “Case ordered passed to March 25, 2002 on discovery issues,” and that it was “set for trial May 17, 2002.”
March 15, 2002: The record before this court contains a certificate by Father’s attorney stating that supplemental answers to Mother’s interrogatories and to her request for production were mailed to her attorney on March 15, 2002. On the same day, Father’s attorney writes Mother’s attorney saying that he hoped the responses to the discovery requests were “all that you require,” but if not, “please notify me immediately and I will get them to you promptly.”
March 20, 2002: Mother’s attorney sent a two-page letter to Father’s attorney detailing continuing deficiencies in the answers to five interrogatories and ten of the requests for production.
*899March 25, 2002: The record does not indicate that the discovery issues were heard on this date as earlier scheduled.
May 17, 2002: Case was set for trial on July 18, 2002.
May 24, 2002: Mother’s attorney writes the trial court outlining his efforts to obtain compliance with their discovery requests and stating that the court took up the motion for sanctions on March 25, 2002 as scheduled, and took it under advisement. It also stated that no additional discovery had been furnished by Father’s attorney despite the letter from Mother’s attorney of March 20, 2002, specifying the deficiencies in the discovery responses. The docket sheet in the record here does not document that court appearance, but the letter to the court outlining that appearance also requests a ruling on the motion for sanctions and notes that the case is set for trial on July 18, 2002.
June 7, 2002: The trial court signed a memorandum to the attorneys stating, “I am inclined to sustain [Mother’s] motion for sanctions. I am granting [Father] 20 days to correct the deficiencies listed in [Mother’s attorney’s] letter of March 20, 2002. [Father] must cure the deficiencies or otherwise his pleadings will be stricken.”
July 11, 2002: Father’s attorney filed a certificate that he had mailed supplemental responses to Mother’s “Third Set of Interrogatories and Request for Production” on the previous day. The record does not reflect, however, a “Third Set of Interrogatories and Request for Production.”
July 15, 2002: The trial court sent a letter on this date (three days before the case was set for trial) to counsel stating: “I have given the parties ample time to prepare this case and would prefer to decide it on the merits. I am granting [Father] another 15 days to complete responses to interrogatories and complete discovery. The parties should realize that foot-dragging only delays the inevitable and the failure to comply may severely [sic] affect what evidence will be received at the final hearing. I would be willing to dissolve the marriage on the scheduled trial date. Other than this option the case is continued.”
July 18, 2002: The trial court entered an order setting the case for trial on September 12 and 13, 2002, and also set it for a “review of discovery” on August 1, 2002.
July 23, 2002: Father’s attorney signed a certificate that he had on that date mailed supplemental “Answers” to Mother’s “Third Request for Production.” Again, the record does not reflect that Mother served a “Third Request For Production.”
July 29, 2002: Trial court entered an order setting the case for August 12, 2002, and that it would “take up issue of discovery compliance that day.”
August 1, 2002: The docket sheet reflects that on this date, Father produced tax returns for 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000 representing some, but not all, of the documents sought in the request for production.
August 12, 2002: The trial court heard arguments concerning the status of discovery. Mother’s attorney outlined the many attempts to obtain discovery, the several instances of Father’s attorney ignoring or only partially complying with the discovery requests, and the fact that one area of discovery that had not fully been complied with dealt with financial information about Alton Farm Supply. *900Father’s attorney acknowledged receiving a letter from Mother’s attorney a year earlier giving a clear indication of what she was contending had not been produced in discovery, but characterized the complaints of Mother’s attorney about discovery by saying he “can nit-pick and nit-pick and nit-pick me to death on this discovery request.” In the course of the arguments, the trial court told Father’s attorney that if Father wouldn’t turn over the requested records to Mother “it’s going to be pretty disastrous for your client,” and “[h]e’s setting himself up to receive nothing in a default situation.” The trial court also told Father’s attorney “we’re going to get down to brass tacks on this case, and if we don’t have this discovery, Mr. Privette, your client is going to be severely prejudiced. He’s just going to have to bite the bullet and make these disclosures.” Finally, the court said about Father, “I think I’ve given him a ton of time, and I’m going to give him one last chance.” At the trial court’s direction, Mother’s attorney prepared a list of the deficiencies in Father’s discovery responses which also referred to the letter of March 20, 2002 from Mother’s attorney to Father’s attorney specifying the failures to comply with discovery. The list indicated that Mother had still not received complete answers to four of her interrogatories and seven of her requests for production. In response, Father’s attorney made a lengthy explanation contending that he either did not have some of the documents or that they were equally available. He also made an oral objection to one of the requests for production that had been served over fourteen months earlier. The response by Mother’s attorney noted the fact that Father had not responded to the requests for production with an affirmative statement that he did not have the documents requested. Eventually, the trial court told the attorneys that discovery requests needed to be complied with, and Father’s attorney said that they would do so in five days if that was what the court wanted.
August 21, 2002: Father’s attorney filed a certificate indicating that on August 20, 2002, he had mailed supplemental answers to Mother’s interrogatories.
September 12, 2002: The trial court reset the case for trial on October 24-25, 2002.
October 23, 2002: Father’s attorney filed a certificate that he had mailed additional supplemental answers to Mother’s interrogatories.
October 24, 2002: This was the first day of trial. Father’s attorney filed a “Motion to Set Aside Order of June 7th or for Order Finding Discovery Complied With.” The Order of June 7, 2002, had ordered Father to fully comply with Mother’s discovery requests within twenty days or “his pleadings will be stricken.” In arguing Father’s motion, Mother’s attorney called the trial court’s attention to the fact that there still had not been complete compliance with their discovery requests, and in particular documents relating to Alton Farm Supply. Inexplicably, the trial court sustained that motion, but did not indicate what relief was being granted.
This chronological history of the attempts by Mother’s attorney to obtain discovery places in perspective a finding made by the trial court in its judgment at the conclusion of the trial. It said:
*901[Mother’s] Motion For Sanctions, filed in this case on December 18, 2001, complaining that [Father] had not fully complied with all discovery request, [sic] came before this Court and was a topic of argument on several different occasions and was finally, on June 7, 2002, sustained so as to provide for the striking of all of [Father’s] pleadings unless full compliance was achieved within 20 days of that date, which it was not. Nevertheless, this Court, wishing to resolve the issues in this contested case on the merits rather than by default, set aside the Order for Sanctions on October 24, 2002, leaving that Motion without final resolution. During the course of the trial of this cause it became apparent the extent to which [Father] purposely failed to comply with [Mother’s] discovery, particularly when it came to producing his business records, and thus [Mother], and this Court, were left to speculate about critical issues in this case which would have otherwise been made certain. It is also clear [Father] had possession or access to the records requested and intentionally refused to produce them for examination and evaluation. This Court, therefore, once more sustains [Mother’s] Motion for Sanctions but will not now strike [Father’s] pleadings or enter Judgment against him by default, but will assess and assign to him, in the determination of the division of the parties’ property and debts an adverse evidentiary inference. (emphasis added).
The division of property as entered by the trial court here is hardly the result of the “adverse evidentiary inference” promised by the trial court. Father’s intentional discovery failures not only created substantial expense to Mother and delay in the proceedings, but also, as the trial court found, left it and Mother to speculate about critical issues in the case.
I am unable to conclude that, considering Father’s actions in the marriage as well as Mother’s industry and thrift, that the division of marital property as fashioned by the trial court was equitable or fair. In my opinion, a fair and equitable distribution of marital property alone would have been for the value of the distribution to be essentially reversed, i.e. Mother would receive at least 60% and Father not more than 40%.

. Father was also awarded all funds in his personal and business checking and savings accounts, but they were neither specifically identified nor were any values assigned to them.

. This figure is understandable considering the numerous problems with discovery experienced by Mother in this case, and the fact that Father himself had spent $16,000 on attorney’s fees by the early portion of the trial that extended over four days between October 24, 2002 and December 6, 2002.

. Rental income that provided $49 per month over the mortgage payments did not begin until six months before the conclusion of the trial.

. Section 452.330.1 provides that the marital property and marital debts shall be divided in such proportions as the court deems just after considering all relevant factors including:
(1)The economic circumstances of each spouse at the time the division of property is to become effective, including the desirability of awarding the family home or the right to live therein for reasonable periods to the spouse having custody of any children;
(2) The contribution of each spouse to the acquisition of the marital property, including the contribution of a spouse as homemaker;
(3) The value of the nonmarital property set apart to each spouse;
(4) The conduct of the parties during the marriage; and
(5) Custodial arrangements for minor children.

. Mother was previously represented by another attorney who withdrew with leave of court on April 30, 2001. Her present attorney entered his appearance on May 15, 2001.