Court Opinion

ID: 9741981
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:04:55.853308+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:27.665249
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE McCULLOUGH, dissenting: I respectfully dissent. As the trial court found in the order on the motion to reconsider: “This wás a highly litigated case. At the time of the final hearing, Petitioner was on her second lawyer (third currently) and Respondent after using three different lawyers elected to proceed pro se. Throughout the proceedings Petitioner had difficulty obtaining Respondent’s financial information and Respondent was once found in contempt for failure to comply with discovery. Early on in the proceeding, Respondent took the position the documents were not required to be provided because of a German pre-marital agreement, or the materials were previously provided to Petitioner in digital form. During the pendency of the proceeding, Petitioner’s attorney refused to discuss with Respondent values and valuation dates as prior meetings had digressed into emotional tyraids [sic] against Petitioner’s character. As a result, Petitioner instructed her attorney to refuse to discuss the case with Respondent unless Respondent agreed to pay for her attorneys fees. Based on the Court’s own observations of the parties, a meaningful meeting between the parties was impossible, and as a result, this Court waived the requirement of a four-way meeting as required by the Court’s pretrial order. At the hearing on remaining issues, Petitioner’s values and valuation dates were used and although this Court acknowledges errors in those values, Petitioner’s objection to the valuation and valuation dates are therefore waived. Also, due to the parties’ refusal to cooperate in establishing values and Respondent’s reluctance to comply with discovery requests, this Court is not convinced it would receive any better values than previously received. At the hearing on the Motions to Reconsider, Petitioner was unable to assure the Court she would be able to obtain more accurate values from Respondent.” As is apparent, this case was a nightmare for the trial judge. He spent considerable time trying to resolve the issues between the parties, and his decision should be affirmed.