Court Opinion

ID: 9402806
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-16 21:04:54.786746+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:02.174098
License: Public Domain

2023 IL App (1st) 220081-U

                                                                                SIXTH DIVISION
                                                                                    June 16, 2023

 NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the
 limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).
 ______________________________________________________________________________
                                              IN THE
                                APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS
                                 FIRST DISTRICT
 ______________________________________________________________________________

 In re THE MARRIAGE OF                                             )
                                                                   )      Appeal from the
 MARGARET D. BEDFORD, n/k/a                                        )      Circuit Court of
 Margaret DiMatteo,                                                )      Cook County.
                                                                   )
        Petitioner-Appellant,                                      )      No. 17 D 008682
                                                                   )
     and                                                           )      Honorable
                                                                   )      Robert W. Johnson,
 HOWARD E. BEDFORD,                                                )      Judge Presiding.
                                                                   )
        Respondent-Appellee.                                       )

        PRESIDING JUSTICE MIKVA delivered the judgment of the court.
        Justices C.A. Walker and Tailor concurred in the judgment.

                                            ORDER
¶1     Held: The trial court abused its discretion in characterizing two bank accounts as marital
             property and this matter is remanded to the circuit court for the limited purpose of
             reconsidering the distribution of the marital estate. Petitioner’s argument that it was
             error for the trial court not to impose sanctions on respondent is forfeited, and
             petitioner’s other claims of error are without merit.

¶2     The petitioner in this case, Margaret DiMatteo, appeals an amended judgment for

dissolution of marriage. She raises nine arguments challenging the court’s reasoning on a range of

issues including the award of maintenance to the respondent, Howard Bedford, the distribution of
No. 1-22-0081

certain marital assets, the court’s classification of which assets were marital and which were not,

attorney fees, and a request for sanctions. Most of these arguments are without merit, but we agree

with Margaret that the court improperly characterized two bank accounts as marital property.

Accordingly, we affirm in part and reverse in part, and remand for further limited proceedings.

¶3                                      I. BACKGROUND

¶4                            A. The Parties’ Marriage and Finances

¶5     Margaret DiMatteo and Howard Bedford were married on June 17, 1989, in Lake Forest,

Illinois. They have two children, both of whom were emancipated adults at the time of their

divorce. The parties also raised Margaret’s son from a previous marriage, who was 11 years old at

the time she and Howard married. On October 10, 2017, Margaret filed a petition for dissolution

of marriage, alleging the grounds of irreconcilable differences.

¶6     When the court entered its initial judgment for dissolution of marriage on March 4, 2021,

Margaret and Howard were both 68 years old. Howard was employed as the Chief Executive

Officer (CEO) of Bedford Paper. Margaret has not been employed since 1995, when she left the

workforce to raise the parties’ children.

¶7     Margaret’s father, Dominick DiMatteo, was the founder of the regional supermarket chain

Dominick’s Finer Foods. When Dominick’s was sold in 1995, proceeds from the sale funded the

DiMatteo Trust, a generation-skipping trust Mr. DiMatteo set up for his children and their

descendants. Goldman Sachs Trust Company (Goldman) took over as trustee of the DiMatteo

Trust in 2013. Under the terms of the trust, Margaret does not have the ability to demand

distributions of the trust’s assets to herself. However, she, or someone acting on her behalf, can

submit a budget and request specific monthly or yearly distributions, which an advisory committee

at Goldman has the final authority to approve or deny. During their 31 years of marriage, the bulk

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of the parties’ money came from regular payments from the DiMatteo Trust.

¶8     Sometime in the mid-to-late 1990s, Margaret began receiving tax-free monthly

distributions from her beneficial interest in the trust. She would typically receive $100,000 a

month, but some months she requested and received as much as $165,000. According to trial

testimony from Tim Foley, a private wealth manager at Goldman who helped administer the trust,

to his knowledge, Goldman had never refused an amount requested by Margaret. Mr. Foley also

explained that despite these monthly six-figure disbursements, the total portfolio value of the

DiMatteo Trust has grown every year, except in 2018, when it decreased slightly due to what Mr.

Foley described as “a very difficult year in the markets.”

¶9     Since Goldman took over as trustee in 2013, the total value of the portfolio has increased

by at least $10 million, and by 2020, according to Mr. Foley, the value of the assets in the DiMatteo

Trust was “north of $40 million.” The trial court found the value of these assets to be roughly $44

million.

¶ 10   The parties relied on these regular trust distributions to fund their lifestyle, which Margaret

characterizes in her brief as “comfortable” and “worry-free.” During their marriage, the parties

maintained three residences: their marital residence in Winnetka, Illinois (which was sold for $4.2

million soon after the commencement of the divorce); a second home in an exclusive, ocean-side

area of North Palm Beach, Florida, worth an estimated $6.2 million; and a condominium in Ocean

City, Maryland, worth $250,000.

¶ 11   Their home in Winnetka housed a wine collection, which Howard took when the house

was sold and later auctioned off for $228,610. They also owned a high-end wine shop in

Northbrook, Illinois, and the commercial building that housed it. As Howard explained in his

testimony, the wine store was never particularly profitable, but it allowed them to have easy access

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to good wines.

¶ 12   The parties and their children travelled frequently, taking regular trips to Florida for

holidays and school vacations, as well as ski trips to Colorado, yachting trips in the Caribbean, and

trips abroad. The parties maintained memberships at three country clubs (two in Florida, one in

Illinois). They often travelled by private jet. In addition to family trips, Howard would also take

annual fishing trips to Alaska and the Bahamas.

¶ 13   While Howard was not a beneficiary of the DiMatteo Trust, and not legally entitled to any

of its assets, he was involved in Margaret’s distribution requests. According to Margaret’s trial

testimony, her husband largely managed the family’s finances during their marriage and was

typically the person to make the proposed budgets and tender them to the trustee. She testified that

from the beginning of their marriage, Howard insisted that the family maintain one unified

checking account. This meant that Margaret’s monthly trust distributions were directly deposited

into a joint checking account held in both their names. Howard’s income also went into this joint

account. Howard also testified that he deposited into the joint account periodic gifts from his father,

which over the years amounted to $2.5 million.

¶ 14   Overall, Howard’s contributions to the account were less substantial and more sporadic

than Margaret’s. When the parties were first married, Howard worked as a financial consultant at

Cigna. He then left Cigna to start his own business, the Bedford Group, which he operated for a

few years. According to Margaret, Howard’s “active involvement in the Bedford Group ended

shortly after [she] started receiving distributions from the DiMatteo Trust.” By 2000, Howard

closed the Bedford Group for good and began to pursue other interests. He became an avid aviation

hobbyist, for example, taking flying lessons and even buying an airplane. Margaret alleges that

she was not consulted in advance about the purchase of that first airplane. Over the course of their

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marriage, the family would own six planes, the last of which Howard purchased for $11 million

and later re-sold in 2014 for $3 million.

¶ 15   Sometime in the early 2000s, Howard started a small aviation company. He and two other

pilots flew clients on chartered trips. While the company provided his family with access to aircraft

for their travel needs, Howard received no salary and eventually wound down the business.

Margaret claims in her brief that during the 14 years Howard ran the aviation company, “he did

not receive 1099 or W-2 income for any of the over 1,000 flights he personally flew.” Howard

himself testified that he did not bring in any W-2 income from when he left the Bedford Group in

the late 1990s until 2016.

¶ 16   In 2012 or 2013, Howard purchased a 49% stake in a Wisconsin-based paper company

(which would later be renamed Bedford Paper) using money from the shared account. By the time

of the divorce, Howard owned 60% of Bedford Paper and served as its CEO, where he worked

around 100 hours per month and collected an annual salary of $125,000. This was his reported

salary at the time of trial. Margaret’s brother and her brother-in-law controlled the remaining 40%

of the company (each possessing a 20% interest).

¶ 17   Howard’s access to Margaret’s monthly trust income, which he had relied on to sustain his

living expenses, ended shortly after Margaret filed her petition for dissolution of marriage.

Margaret opened a new checking account with Chase Bank (the Chase account) for her trust

distributions. To open that account, she made an initial transfer of $100 from the parties’ shared

checking account.

¶ 18   As the balance of that new checking account began to accumulate, Margaret then decided

to open another account (the Goldman account) so that she could earn more interest on any money

she was not spending. On October 15, 2018, she funded the Goldman account with an initial

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transfer of $500,000 from the Chase account. On June 7, 2019, she made a second transfer in the

amount of $400,000.

¶ 19                               B. Trial Court Proceedings

¶ 20   Margaret filed her petition for dissolution of marriage on October 10, 2017. After 17 days

of trial—which took place over the course of more than three years due mostly to disruptions

caused by the COVID pandemic—the trial court entered its initial judgment on March 4, 2021.

The court awarded Margaret as her non-marital property the full value of the assets in the DiMatteo

Trust, the Chase account, and the Goldman account, as well as several other assets not relevant to

this appeal. For her portion of the marital estate, Margaret was awarded the wine shop in

Northbrook, the commercial building housing the wine shop, and the home in Florida.

¶ 21   In the initial judgment, Howard was awarded as marital property the 60% interest in

Bedford Paper, the condominium in Ocean City, Maryland, and several other accounts and assets.

In total, Howard received $5,540,346 in marital assets while Margaret received $4,426,007, for an

overall percentage allocation of about 56%-44% in favor of Howard. The court also awarded

Howard permanent maintenance in the amount of $20,000 per month.

¶ 22   Howard filed a motion to reconsider on April 2, 2021, challenging several allocation

determinations made by the court. Following briefing and argument, the court granted Howard’s

motion and issued an amended judgment on June 15, 2021, reclassifying the Chase and Goldman

accounts as marital assets and awarding the wine shop and the commercial property housing it to

Howard rather than Margaret. This altered the overall allocation of marital assets by approximately

one percent, with $5,078,913 (57%) awarded to Howard and $3,782,255 (43%) to Margaret.

¶ 23   Margaret filed a motion to reconsider the amended judgment, which the court denied on

December 17, 2021. This appeal followed.

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¶ 24                                     II. JURISDICTION

¶ 25   The court denied Margaret’s motion to reconsider on December 17, 2021. She timely filed

a notice of appeal on January 14, 2022. This court has jurisdiction pursuant to Illinois Supreme

Court Rule 301 (eff. Feb. 1, 1994) and Rule 303 (eff. July 1, 2017), governing appeals from final

judgments entered by the circuit court in civil cases.

¶ 26                                      III. ANALYSIS

¶ 27   Margaret presents an array of arguments on appeal challenging various decisions made by

the trial court. In addition to complaints about Howard’s lack of credibility that permeate her brief,

Margaret asserts that the trial court erred in the following specific ways: (1) awarding Howard

permanent maintenance; (2) refusing to allocate to Howard—either in the form of dissipation or

as a pre-judgment distribution of marital assets—$771,100 that he took from the marital estate

during the pendency of the divorce proceedings; (3) refusing to assign 100% of the liability to

Howard for a judgment entered against him in a commercial lawsuit related to his activities as the

CEO of Bedford Paper; (4) reclassifying the Chase and Goldman accounts as marital;

(5) reassigning the wine shop and the building that houses it to Howard; (6) failing to enter

sanctions against Howard for filing a false financial disclosure; and (7) awarding Howard a

$60,000 contribution for attorney fees and costs. We will address these issues in turn.

¶ 28                                  A. Howard’s Credibility

¶ 29   Margaret’s overarching refrain on appeal is that “Howard Bedford has no credibility.” She

highlights a few anecdotes from the extremely lengthy trial record which she claims suggest that

the trial court also found Howard to be unreliable. She then asserts that “since credibility is key in

assessing a witness’s testimony and evidence, this Court should view all of Howard’s claims with

a jaundiced eye.” She states in her reply brief, however, that she “is not asking this Court to reverse

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or alter the trial court’s credibility determinations.”

¶ 30    As the trier of fact, the trial court was clearly in a superior position to judge the parties’

credibility and determine the weight to give to their testimony. See Buckner v. Causey, 311 Ill.

App. 3d 139, 144 (1999). As Howard points out, the trial court never made an express finding of

his credibility in this case. We must presume that the court’s rulings reflect its weighing of all the

appropriate concerns, including the relative credibility of the parties, and we consider those rulings

on appeal in light of the applicable standard of review, which, as we discuss throughout this order,

is whether the trial court abused its discretion in any of its rulings or made a finding that was

against the manifest weight of the evidence. Except for its recharacterization of the Chase and

Goldman accounts as marital property on the motion to reconsider, we find it did not.

¶ 31                                       B. Maintenance

¶ 32    Section 504(a) of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (Act) authorizes

the circuit court in a dissolution of marriage proceeding to “grant a maintenance award for either

spouse in amounts and for periods of time as the court deems just.” 750 ILCS 5/504(a) (West

2020). The statute sets forth numerous factors for the court to consider when determining whether

to grant maintenance, including:

                “(1) the income and property of each party, including marital property apportioned

        and non-marital property assigned to the party seeking maintenance as well as all financial

        obligations imposed on the parties as a result of the dissolution of marriage;

                (2) the needs of each party;

                (3) the realistic present and future earning capacity of each party;

                (4) any impairment of the present and future earning capacity of the party seeking

        maintenance due to that party devoting time to domestic duties or having forgone or

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       delayed education, training, employment, or career opportunities due to the marriage;

                (5) any impairment of the realistic present or future earning capacity of the party

       against whom maintenance is sought;

                (6) the time necessary to enable the party seeking maintenance to acquire

       appropriate education, training, and employment, and whether that party is able to support

       himself or herself through appropriate employment;

                (6.1) the effect of any parental responsibility arrangements and its effect on a

       party’s ability to seek or maintain employment;

                (7) the standard of living established during the marriage;

                (8) the duration of the marriage;

                (9) the age, health, station, occupation, amount and sources of income, vocational

       skills, employability, estate, liabilities, and the needs of each of the parties;

                (10) all sources of public and private income including, without limitation,

       disability and retirement income;

                (11) the tax consequences to each party;

                (12) contributions and services by the party seeking maintenance to the education,

       training, career or career potential, or license of the other spouse;

                (13) any valid agreement of the parties; and

                (14) any other factor that the court expressly finds to be just and equitable.” Id.

As our supreme court explained in In re Marriage of Schneider, 214 Ill. 2d 152, 173 (2005), “[t]he

propriety of a maintenance award is within the discretion of the trial court and the court’s decision

will not be disturbed absent an abuse of discretion.” An abuse of discretion exists only where the

court’s ruling is arbitrary, fanciful, or unreasonable, or when no reasonable person would take the

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view adopted by the trial court. In re Marriage of LaRocque, 2018 IL App (2d) 160973, ¶ 94.

¶ 33    Margaret argues that the trial court’s award of permanent maintenance to Howard in the

amount of $20,000 per month amounted to an abuse of discretion because it did not fully consider

Howard’s wealth and his ability to generate more income to cover his living expenses. We

disagree. While Margaret is correct that the court’s maintenance decision should reflect the parties’

income and present and future earning capacities, those factors are no more or less important than

the other 13 factors. In this case, the court’s maintenance award does not strike us as unreasonable

in light of some of these other factors, specifically factors five (impairment of the realistic present

or future earning capacity of the party against whom maintenance is sought), seven (the standard

of living during the marriage), eight (the duration of the marriage), and nine (the age, health,

station, occupation, etc. of each of the parties).

¶ 34    Margaret and Howard were married for over three decades, during which time they enjoyed

what Margaret herself refers to as a comfortable and worry-free lifestyle. She argues that if he

wanted to, Howard could earn more income as CEO of Bedford Paper to continue to pay for the

lifestyle he became accustomed to during their marriage. But Howard is a man in his 70s who

suffers from polymyalgia rheumatica, a condition which impacts his ability to work and will likely

progress as he gets older. Margaret does not describe any marketable skills that Howard possesses

at this stage of his life. From the record, it appears that he has not had a steady, full-time job since

the 1990s, when, as Margaret explains in her brief, he largely exited the workforce and began to

use his “access to [her] trust distributions to indulge in his own hobbies.”

¶ 35    As we explained in In re Marriage of Lenkner, 241 Ill. App. 3d 15, 25 (1993), while the

optimal goal of maintenance is for the dependent former spouse to become financially

independent, in divorces “involving former spouses with grossly disparate earning potentials, this

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goal is often not achievable in light of the dependent former spouse’s entitlement to maintain the

standard of living established during the marriage.” In such cases, “the goal of financial

independence must be balanced against a realistic appraisal of the likelihood the spouse will be

able to support [him]self in some reasonable approximation of the standard of living established

during the marriage.” Id. Here, even if Howard were able to increase his salary as CEO of Bedford

Paper—a somewhat dubious proposition based on trial testimony about the finances of Bedford

Paper—he would still be a long way from achieving any semblance of the standard of living he

and Margaret enjoyed during their 31-year marriage.

¶ 36   Additionally, this maintenance award does not significantly impair Margaret’s realistic

present or future earning capacity. Simply put, she can afford it. Twenty-thousand dollars a month

represents just one-fifth of a typical monthly disbursement from her interest in the DiMatteo Trust,

the assets of which, as trial testimony established, have only grown in value since she started taking

money out of it over two decades ago. Barring any intervening events, Margaret can expect to

continue receiving these payments indefinitely, regardless of her health or ability to work. Howard

has no comparable guarantee of financial stability as he enters into advanced age and his health

worsens.

¶ 37   In sum, because a number of the factors in section 504 of the Act weighed in favor of

granting Howard a significant maintenance award, the court did not abuse its discretion when it

awarded him maintenance of $20,000 per month.

¶ 38                         C. $771,100 in “Substitute Maintenance”

¶ 39   Margaret next argues that the trial court erred by not assessing against Howard the

$771,110 in marital cash that she claims he drained from the marital estate while the divorce

proceedings were underway. She argues that the court should have viewed this as either dissipation

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or as a pre-distribution of marital assets. She asserts that the court’s failure to adequately reckon

with this cash grab from their joint accounts resulted in an unjustifiable windfall for Howard.

¶ 40   A trial court’s finding regarding the allocation of marital property, including making

allowances for dissipation, will not be reversed absent an abuse of discretion. In re Marriage of

Petrovich, 145 Ill. App. 3d 881, 886 (1987). We see no abuse of discretion here.

¶ 41   The trial court in this case was well aware of the $771,100 in cash that Howard took from

the marital estate during the divorce proceedings. There is a section of the initial judgment titled

“marital funds accessed by Howard” which directly addresses the topic and where the court

acknowledged that Howard provided no proof as to how he spent this money. The court then

explained that it considered that money to be a “pre-distribution” to Howard, a ruling which

implicitly rejected Margaret’s dissipation claim. However, later on, in the section denying

Howard’s petition for temporary maintenance, the court further explained that “[g]iven the

substantial amount of cash Howard had access to during these proceedings, approximately

$771,000, established by Howard’s testimony of his spending in defense of Margaret’s dissipation

claim, temporary maintenance was unwarranted.” Read together, these two statements are

somewhat confusing, as the court seemed to suggest that this $771,000 sum was simultaneously a

pre-distribution and a de facto form of temporary maintenance, the existence of which helped

justify its decision to deny Howard’s emergency petition for temporary maintenance.

¶ 42   However, any ambiguity as to how the court viewed these funds was remedied in the

court’s June 15, 2021, order granting Howard’s motion to reconsider. The court clarified in that

order that it had “considered Howard’s access to $771,000 in marital funds in denying Howard

temporary maintenance. The same $771,000 cannot be considered a pre-distribution to Howard

and shall be removed from the Marital Balance Sheet.” Thus, in the court’s view, this $771,000

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was neither dissipation nor a pre-distribution, but money that Howard was entitled to as a form of

maintenance to keep him afloat during the proceedings. Margaret has not met her burden of

showing that this decision amounted to an abuse of discretion.

¶ 43                         D. The Civil Judgment Against Howard

¶ 44   Margaret next challenges the trial court’s ruling assigning liability in a civil judgment

entered against Howard to the marital estate rather than to Howard individually. Howard was found

liable for $741,000 in a commercial dispute stemming from his role as CEO of Bedford Paper.

Margaret asserts that she had nothing to do with that lawsuit and that she was unaware of the

litigation until after the judgment was entered. Further, the judgment was not entered until

September 2018, “almost a full year into the dissolution of marriage proceedings.” In other words,

she argues, “[t]his debt was incurred, by Howard, long after the marriage had broken down.”

(Emphasis in original.)

¶ 45   The timeline Margaret highlights is not dispositive of whether this debt is a part of the

marital estate. Section 503(b)(1) of the Act sets forth a presumption that all property—including

debts and other obligations—acquired by either spouse after the marriage begins and before a

judgment of dissolution of marriage has been entered is marital property. 750 ILCS 5/503(b)(1)

(West 2020). That presumption is only rebuttable with clear and convincing evidence that the

property was acquired by a method listed in subsection (a) of section 503, which delineates

categories of property considered to be non-marital. See Id. § 503(a). Margaret has not rebutted

this presumption.

¶ 46   The civil judgment against Howard, entered after the marriage and prior to dissolution, was

presumptively part of the marital estate. The trial court seemingly viewed this liability as

inseparable from the parties’ interest in Bedford Paper, which was indisputably part of the marital

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estate. This was not an unreasonable conclusion to draw based on testimony heard by the court,

where Howard discussed the origins of the lawsuit. In short, the litigation stemmed from the

aborted purchase of two machines for Bedford Paper during the period of time that Howard was

taking over the company from its previous owner. Margaret does not provide any convincing

evidence to the contrary. She argues that Howard committed “accounting trickery” to disguise his

personal liability as a Bedford Paper business expense, but her argument is confusing and difficult

to understand. She highlights the fact that the lawsuit named Howard personally, and not Bedford

Paper (or the company’s prior name, Straubel Paper) as the defendant, but this fact alone does not

prove that this liability was not a Bedford Paper business expense.

¶ 47   In sum, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in ruling that the judgment entered against

Howard was part of the marital estate.

¶ 48                          E. The Chase and Goldman Accounts

¶ 49   Margaret next argues that the trial court erred when, in its amended judgment, it reclassified

the Chase and Goldman accounts as marital property.

¶ 50   A trial court’s classification of property as marital or non-marital will not be disturbed on

appeal unless it is contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence. In re Marriage of Foster, 2014

IL App (1st) 123078, ¶ 68. Here, we agree with Margaret that the court’s reclassification of these

accounts was erroneous and against the manifest weight of the evidence.

¶ 51   The court changed its view of these accounts based upon a stipulation the parties had

entered early in the proceedings, which stated the following:

       “Margaret hereby in open court, waives all claims that any asset is nonmarital except for

       Phone Jockey Investors FF4 and the Goldman Sachs/Dominick DiMatteo Jr. Irrevocable

       Trust and its current assets and income. As such, she is barred from claiming any asset is

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       nonmarital at trial except for the Phone Jockey Investors FF4 and the Goldman

       Sachs/Dominick DiMatteo Jr. Trust claims.”

It appears that since the Chase and Goldman accounts were not similarly excepted from this

stipulated understanding of the parties’ marital property, the trial court considered any argument

that the accounts were non-marital property to be waived by Margaret. This was an erroneous

reading of the parties’ stipulation.

¶ 52   Section 503(a)(1) plainly classifies “property acquired by gift, legacy or descent” as non-

marital. 750 ILCS 5/503(a)(1) (West 2020). Here, not only does section 503(a)(1) establish a

presumption that the DiMatteo Trust is non-marital, but the parties stipulated to this fact. As the

court acknowledged in both of its judgments, “[t]he parties stipulate that Margaret’s beneficial

interest in the Dominick DiMatteo Jr. Irrevocable Trust FBO Margaret D. Bedford *** constitutes

her non-marital property.” The more specific language in the stipulation highlighted by Howard

in his motion to reconsider also firmly establishes that Margaret’s interest in the DiMatteo Trust—

including any assets, income, and claims related to that trust—is non-marital property. It is

irrelevant that the stipulation highlighted by Howard does not specifically name the Chase and

Goldman accounts. Income from the DiMatteo Trust is Margaret’s non-marital property, and the

entire purpose of those accounts was to make that income available to her, and only to her.

¶ 53   Prior to opening the Chase account, Margaret’s monthly trust disbursements were directly

deposited into an account that Howard could access. After she filed for divorce, Howard used that

access to withdraw significant quantities of cash from the shared account. This prompted Margaret

to open the Chase account and reroute her monthly trust deposits to the new account, of which she

was the sole owner. When the balance of that new account grew to more than she needed on a day-

to-day basis, Margaret then opened the Goldman account, so that the excess funds could earn

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interest. The obvious purpose of these accounts was to provide a safe home for Margaret’s non-

marital trust income beyond Howard’s reach. In our view, these accounts are merely extensions of

her beneficial interest in the DiMatteo Trust, and Howard has no claim to them.

¶ 54   We also disagree with Howard that the nature of the accounts was changed by the

commingling of marital and non-marital property. When Margaret first opened the Chase account,

she did so with a $100 transfer from the parties’ shared account, where they had historically

commingled their funds. Howard argues both that this evidenced “an intent to treat that account as

marital” and that the $100 transmuted the Chase account into marital property. This de minimis

transfer of $100 did not transmute the Chase and Goldman accounts into marital property.

¶ 55   As we explained in Foster, 2014 IL App (1st) 123078, ¶¶ 75, 79, there is no presumption

that commingled property is always transmuted into marital property, and the fact that two

different types of income are commingled in a joint account does not, by itself, “establish that the

nonmarital inheritance income [is] transmuted into marital property.” Further, the principle of

transmutation “ ‘is based on the presumption that the owner of the nonmarital property intended

to make a gift of the property to the marital estate.’ ” (quoting In re Marriage of Olson, 96 Ill. 2d

432, 439 (1983)). Here, as explained above, the record is clear that Margaret’s intent in opening

the Chase account was exactly the opposite of “making a gift to the marital estate”—she was trying

to safeguard her non-marital property from Howard. These accounts should not have been

reclassified as marital property, as their entire purpose was to secure income for Margaret from

the DiMatteo Trust, which is indisputably Margaret’s non-marital property.

¶ 56   Finally, Howard argues that even if these assets were incorrectly classified as marital, it

does not matter because Margaret was ultimately allocated them in the distribution of the marital

estate. Thus, “she was not deprived of the property based upon its classification.” However, even

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if Margaret was ultimately awarded title to these two accounts in the court’s distribution of marital

assets, the mere classification of these accounts as marital property increased the overall value of

the marital estate by nearly $800,000, which may have impacted the court’s other distribution

decisions. As it is impossible for us to know the extent to which the court’s erroneous classification

of these accounts as marital property influenced the ultimate distribution of the marital estate,

remand on this issue is required.

¶ 57                                     F. The Wine Shop

¶ 58   Margaret also argues that the court erred when it changed its mind and awarded the wine

shop as marital property to Howard instead of her. The court provided no explanation for this

decision, but Margaret suggests in her brief that it was “an apparent attempt to ‘compensate’ ”

Howard for recharacterizing the Chase and Goldman accounts as marital property and awarding

them to Margaret. This strikes us as a plausible explanation for the court’s decision. The

recharacterization of the bank accounts resulted in the overall value of the marital estate increasing

by $783,580.27. In light of this increase in value, all of which went to Margaret, the court likely

felt that giving Howard the wine shop would keep the distribution equitable.

¶ 59   In any event, whichever party deserves the wine shop is an issue to be dealt with on remand,

where the court must reconsider the distribution of marital assets between the parties now that

those assets no longer include the Chase and Goldman accounts.

¶ 60                                        G. Sanctions

¶ 61   Margaret next argues that the court should have granted a motion she filed seeking

sanctions against Howard on June 7, 2019, for filing an intentionally false and misleading

preliminary financial disclosure with the court. The trial court apparently never addressed the

motion and Margaret contends that “the judge should have issued significant sanctions against

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Howard for his misrepresentation, and the failure to do so constituted an error of law.” In response,

Howard argues that it is Margaret, and not him, who deserves to be sanctioned.

¶ 62    In our view, remand is not warranted here as the issue is not properly preserved for appeal.

As we explained in Intercontinental Parts, Inc. v. Caterpillar, Inc., 260 Ill. App. 3d 1085, 1090

(1994), the failure to enter a ruling on a motion is not equivalent to a denial of the motion, and “a

party who has filed a motion seeking certain relief from the court is obligated to obtain a ruling on

that motion.” Margaret forfeited review of this issue by failing to secure a ruling on her motion by

the trial court.

¶ 63                                      H. Attorney Fees

¶ 64    Margaret’s final argument is that the trial court erred in awarding Howard a $60,000

contribution to his legal fees. She asserts that “Howard was responsible for many of the legal fees

incurred in this case, and Howard has the ability to pay his own fees.” A circuit court’s decision

to award attorney fees will not be disturbed absent an abuse of discretion. In re Marriage of Heroy,

2017 IL 120205, ¶ 13. We find no abuse of discretion here.

¶ 65    Howard is certainly walking away from this marriage with substantial assets. But he need

not prove that he is destitute to qualify for a contribution of attorney fees. Rather, “it is sufficient

to show that payment would exhaust his estate or strip him of his means of support or undermine

his economic stability.” In re Marriage of Minear, 287 Ill. App. 3d 1073, 1085. At the time he

filed his petition for legal fees, he had outstanding legal bills amounting to over $108,848.60, a

sum which represents about 87% of his annual salary at Bedford Paper, or about 30% of his annual

income once maintenance is factored in.

¶ 66    Further, as Howard notes in his brief, section 503(j)(2) of the Act states that “[a]ny award

of contribution to one party from the other party shall be based on the criteria for division of marital

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property under this Section 503 and, if maintenance has been awarded, on the criteria for an award

of maintenance under Section 504.” 750 ILCS 5/503(j)(2) (West 2020). This provision makes clear

that when deciding whether to grant a contribution, the court should consider the same equitable

factors it considers when making a decision about maintenance (see supra, ¶ 32). In this case, as

we discussed at length when we rejected Margaret’s maintenance argument, a number of those

factors unquestionably favor granting an award to Howard. Accordingly, the court did not abuse

its discretion when it awarded Howard a $60,000 contribution from Margaret for legal fees.

¶ 67                                     IV. CONCLUSION

¶ 68    For the foregoing reasons, we affirm in part and reverse in part and remand the matter to

the circuit court for the limited purpose of reconsidering its distribution of marital property in light

of our ruling that the Chase and Goldman accounts are Margaret’s non-marital property.

¶ 69    Affirmed in part and reversed in part; remanded with directions.

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