Aufenthie v. Aufenthie
| Decision Date | 08 June 2020 |
| Docket Number | A19-0883 |
| Parties | In re the Marriage of: Charles Robert Aufenthie, petitioner, Respondent, v. Heidi Christine Aufenthie, Appellant. |
| Court | Minnesota Court of Appeals |
This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2018).
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded
*
Lyon County District Court
William J. Toulouse, Quarnstrom & Doering, P.A., Marshall, Minnesota (for respondent)
Andrew M. Tatge, Samuel E. Courtney, Gislason & Hunter LLP, Mankato, Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Segal, Chief Judge; Rodenberg, Judge; and Kirk, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
In this marital-dissolution dispute, appellant-wife argues that the district court made several errors in determining the appropriate amount of spousal maintenance, dividing marital property, and denying her motion for need-based attorney fees. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand to the district court for further proceedings.
Appellant-wife Heidi Aufenthie and respondent-husband Charles Aufenthie married in 1997 and had two children. Husband petitioned to dissolve their marriage in March 2017, and the district court entered a stipulated partial judgment governing parenting time and custody in April 2018. The parties stipulated in October 2018 to the entry of a judgment dissolving their marriage and resolving certain property-division issues subject to the district court's final, posttrial determination. The district court conducted a two-day trial on the remaining issues and issued a judgment and decree in April 2019. The following is a summary of the evidence most relevant to the issues raised in wife's appeal.
Husband testified that he is a State Farm insurance salesman. He earned a greater income than wife throughout their marriage. His earnings were entirely commission-based, but he incorporated his business so he could establish a salary from his commission-based income. He and wife purchased a preschool in 2003 for wife to own and operate, which husband described as costing the parties more than the income it generated. The parties lived a costly lifestyle that left little, if any, surplus at the end of each month. Husbandrepresented that his monthly expenses total $12,440, and were as follows: (1) $1,600 for rent; (2) $1,285 for the children's college and school tuition; (3) $550 for health insurance; (4) $275 for utilities; (5) $160 for Vast internet and cable; (6) $120 for cell-phone payments; (7) $500 for credit-card payments; (8) $1,700 for insurance; (9) $750 for vehicle payments; (10) $500 for the children's expenses; (11) $2,500 for past-due federal taxes; (12) $1,500 for attorney fees; and (13) $1,000 for repayments of loans on life-insurance policies.
Wife testified that she has a bachelor's degree in K-12 physical education with a coaching minor, along with coaching and personal-trainer certifications. She represented that her monthly expenses totaled $6,945, but an expert recommended a higher monthly budget of $7,444.11.
Certified public accountant Eric Eben, the parties' tax consultant, also testified. He prepared a document summarizing the parties' respective incomes and expenses reported on their taxes for husband's insurance business, wife's preschool business, and other sources from 2014 through 2017. The insurance agency yielded an annual net income (taking into account an expense for "Owners Compensation") of $162,790 in 2014; $190,542 in 2015; $175,842 in 2016; and $196,494 in 2017. An office-rental property yielded net income of $11,408 in 2014; $9,685 in 2015; $9,947 in 2016; and $9,278 in 2017. Husband's interest in a limited-liability partnership yielded net incomes of $9,652 and $9,778 in 2014 and 2015, but net losses of $2,734 and $12,076 in 2016 and 2017. The document also included an apparent attribution of the corporation income, LLP income, rental income, and salary to husband for those years: $275,950 in 2014; $285,588 in 2015;$258,862 in 2016; and $270,939 in 2017. The four-year average was $272,834, or $22,736 per month. Wife's preschool meanwhile yielded $9,088 in net income to wife in 2014; $21,546 in 2015; $20,557 in 2016; and $19,180 in 2017. The four-year average totaled $20,093, or $1,674 per month.
Robert Aufenthie, husband's father, testified that he and four others formed Kawinogan's Camp LLC (the camp) in 1982 to rent a secluded Canadian property. Robert eventually came to own a one-fifth share in the camp. Sometime around 2007, he verbally transferred his share to husband.
Husband testified that he did not initially pay his father for the camp share. Husband sold his share in the camp for $150,000, payable in three $50,000 installments. Husband claimed he took $10,500 in beef as part of that payment, gave wife cash in the amount of $10,000, and paid his father $30,000. He testified that he used some of the proceeds to pay for expenses related to the divorce proceedings. He confirmed that he "may have written a check out of [his] business account or [his] personal account" to pay the expense and then "used the cash for something else." He explained he could not live on $3,000 every two weeks given the automatic withdrawals from his accounts, and so he used the cash "to survive." He identified the need to pay for gas, groceries, and furnishings for his new apartment. He paid $7,000 of wife's credit-card debt, $11,000 for expert testimony, $9,000 for a custody evaluation, $6,000 for therapy services for the parties' minor children, $15,000 in attorney fees, $15,000 in rental and furnishing costs, $5,000 on a vacation,$18,000 in additional living costs, and $12,000 for expenses associated with a limited liability partnership before its sale.
Husband could not recall how certain funds could be traceable from cash into a bank account and eventually out as check transfers. He admitted that the majority of the expenses he listed as having been paid by the camp's sale proceeds were actually paid by check, and that the cash-on-hand freed up his business or personal checking accounts to write those checks. He guessed that the cash was put in his safe "until [he] needed it," but he also admitted that it was "already gone" at the time of trial. He also testified that he would frequently give wife cash to pay the children's expenses: "I would give her . . . $1,000 to go school shopping and whatever number that she needed, we just dealt with cash."
The parties had two minor children during the litigation whom the parties had previously claimed as dependents. By the parties' agreement, wife's home became the primary residence of the children, and husband was awarded parenting time for less than 50% of the year.
The parties purchased their home in 2016, when its appraised value was $360,000. But a 2018 appraisal determined the home's value as of August 22, 2018, to be $312,000. Husband thought the appraisal drastically undervalued the home. Sometime in 2018, the home's roof suffered hail damage which "totaled" the roof. Husband submitted a claim to the insurance company, received a check, endorsed it, and then sent it to wife.
Wife elected to file her 2017 taxes as "Married Filing Separately," a decision that caused husband to owe $10,384 more in taxes on his income than he would have owed if he and wife had filed jointly. Wife admitted that she did not consult with husband before filing separately. Before the parties separated, they had always filed joint tax returns. But husband also admitted that he sold his 2012 Chevy Silverado—marital property—without wife's consent. His 2017 taxes listed a gross sales price of $22,228. Eben testified that he prepared a document, exhibit 115, that accounted for the difference between husband's actual 2017 tax filings and an alternative tax column that deleted "the tax consequence of a sale of a vehicle" and "the sale of some investment assets." The difference was $10,368, accounting for both state and federal taxes.
Wife moved for an award of need-based attorney fees, arguing that an award was appropriate because she lacked the means to pay her fees while husband had more-than-adequate resources to do so. Husband responded that wife's fees were not necessary for the good-faith assertion of her rights, that husband lacked the means to pay the fees, and that wife did have the means to pay.
The district court determined that wife's average gross monthly income was $1,674, and that her income was insufficient to meet her expenses. It determined that wife's reasonable monthly expenses totaled $7,539, leaving her with a monthly budgetary shortfall of approximately $6,100 after taxes. The district court found that wife wasvoluntarily underemployed, but that it could not impute income to her because there was no evidence presented regarding her employment potential, prevailing job opportunities, or earnings levels in her community. The district court found it unlikely that she would obtain additional education to further employment, but noted that she already possessed "the necessary training and education to find employment that is self-sustaining."
The district court meanwhile determined that husband's average gross income was $259,963 per year, or $21,664 per month. It reduced husband's claimed monthly expenses from $14,240 to $10,602. The district court reached this figure based on the following items: $1,600 for rent; $550 for health insurance; $275 for utilities; $160 for Vast internet and cable; $120 for cell-phone bills; $500 for other insurance; $750 for car payments; $500 for attorney fees; $1,500 for past-due tax payments; $500 for loan repayments; $1,847 for child support; and $800 in miscellaneous expenses. Without a specific determination of...
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