Calvin C. v. Amelia A.

• Decision Date: 10 June 2021
• Docket Number: No. 19-P-1616,19-P-1616
• Citation: 99 Mass.App.Ct. 714,173 N.E.3d 24
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts
• Parties: CALVIN C. v. AMELIA A.

99 Mass.App.Ct. 714

173 N.E.3d 24

CALVIN C.

v.AMELIA A.¹

No. 19-P-1616

Appeals Court of Massachusetts, Worcester.

Argued January 12, 2021.

Decided June 10, 2021.

Christine D. Anthony, for the husband.

Penelope A. Kathiwala, for the wife.

Present: Vuono, Rubin, & Sullivan, JJ.

SULLIVAN, J.

Calvin C. (husband), the former spouse of Amelia A. (wife), appeals from a judgment of divorce nisi (divorce judgment) entered in the Probate and Family Court. He principally challenges the amount of his alimony obligation, the manner in which the wife's child support obligation was calculated, and certain aspects of the distribution of the marital estate. We conclude that the provisions of the divorce judgment related to the distribution of the marital estate must be vacated and the matter remanded for further proceedings. We otherwise affirm the divorce judgment.

Background. We summarize the relevant facts found by the judge, supplementing them with undisputed evidence in the record. See Pierce v. Pierce, 455 Mass. 286, 288, 916 N.E.2d 330 (2009). The parties were married in 1995. They had three children together during the marriage. The parties enjoyed a "comfortable middle class lifestyle" during the marriage, due in part to the "generosity" of the husband's mother and father.² In July 2000, the husband's mother and both parties settled a nominee trust for the purpose of holding title to the marital home, which was purchased shortly thereafter using funds provided by the husband's mother. The husband's mother and both parties are cotrustees and cobeneficiaries of the nominee trust, with the husband's mother having an eighty percent beneficial interest and each of the parties having a ten percent beneficial interest. The marital home is the sole property held by the trust. At the time of the purchase, title to the marital home was conveyed directly from the sellers to the parties and the husband's mother, as trustees of the nominee trust. The husband's mother resided with the parties in the marital home for most of the marriage.

In August 2017, the husband filed a complaint for divorce. In February 2019, while the divorce action was still pending, the wife vacated the marital home and moved into an apartment with a monthly rent of $1,475. The husband remained in the marital home with his mother and the parties' children.

On August 2, 2019, following a four-day trial, the judge issued the divorce judgment and findings of fact. With respect to support, the divorce judgment provided that the husband would have a weekly alimony obligation of $322, and the wife would have a weekly child support obligation of seventy-seven dollars, resulting in a net alimony payment from the husband to the wife of $245 per week. The divorce judgment required the husband to maintain health and dental insurance for the wife while his alimony obligation remained in effect, and for the children until their respective emancipations.

The judge found that "[t]he parties lived beyond their personal means, relying primarily on [the husband's mother] for economic support, during the marriage. They will not be able to maintain their marital lifestyle" after the divorce. The wife, who had not completed high school or obtained a general equivalency degree, is a licensed cosmetologist. She worked part time in a hair salon that she co-owned, and reported modest income from her part-time work and a business loss. The wife purchased her one-half ownership interest in the salon using $10,000 gifted by the husband's mother. The judge found the wife capable of earning more with reasonable effort and attributed a weekly income to her of $480, based on full-time employment in a minimum wage position (at the wage then in effect).

The judge found that the husband's total gross income from his full-time employment as an office manager at his cousin's law firm was $1,769.38 per week, which she arrived at by calculating the weekly average of the husband's 2018 total gross earnings of $92,007.98 from the law firm. The judge concluded that the husband failed to "make any persuasive argument for why his total gross income should not be found to be his income available for support"; accordingly, she used that income figure to calculate the husband's alimony obligation to the wife. The judge further found that the husband, who would continue to live in the marital home after the divorce, "does not pay rent[,] ... makes minimal economic contributions to this residence," and "has an ability to pay support" to the wife. The wife struggled to obtain housing after leaving the marital home due to her poor credit and limited income.

For purposes of alimony, the judge found that the wife was in need of support and that the husband had an ability to pay. Recognizing that the parties' financial resources were insufficient to maintain the marital lifestyle after the divorce, the judge considered the wife's need, the husband's ability to pay, and achieved a "fair balance of sacrifices" by ordering the husband to pay weekly alimony of $322 (equivalent to twenty-five percent of the difference between the parties' respective incomes). See G. L. c. 208, § 53 (b ) ("the amount of alimony should generally not exceed the recipient's need or [thirty to thirty-five percent] of the difference between the parties' gross incomes"). The judge then calculated the wife's postminority child support obligation to the husband using the same weekly income figures that she used to calculate alimony ($1,769.38 for the husband and $480 for the wife), arriving at a child support order of seventy-seven dollars per week. This resulted in a net alimony payment from the husband to the wife of $245 per week.

With respect to the marital estate, the judge stated that she had "crafted an equitable division of assets and liabilities by which each party receives fifty percent of the total equity of the marital estate." Pursuant to the assets and liabilities division chart included in the judge's findings, the husband was to receive assets totaling $186,645.38, and liabilities totaling $78,462.10, and the wife was to receive assets totaling $130,989.36, and liabilities totaling $22,806.08, with each party netting $108,183.28 (after deducting liabilities from assets). Included in the marital estate were the parties' beneficial interests the nominee trust. The judge declined the husband's request that the wife's interest be assigned to him, instead assigning each party their respective ten percent beneficial interest in the nominee trust. The judge found the fair market value of each party's ten percent beneficial interest to be $65,800. At the time of the divorce, the marital home was encumbered by a $90,0000 home equity line of credit (HELOC). The judge found that both parties were liable for the HELOC (the husband's mother was not responsible for it). In calculating each party's beneficial interest in the nominee trust, the judge therefore deducted the fifty percent portion of the HELOC for which each was liable (i.e., $45,000 each), and found that each party's equity interest was worth $20,800. In calculating the assets and liabilities of the marital estate, this net amount was included in each party's share of the assets. However, in the "Division of Liabilities" section of the divorce judgment, the judge ordered that the husband alone "shall timely pay the HELOC loan on the [marital home] each and every month." As described in the discussion that follows, below, husband's contention is that this reduced the judge's allocation of the husband's marital estate "equity" from $108,183.28 (the amount he was supposed to receive according to the judge's assets and liabilities division chart) to $63,183.28.

The husband filed a motion to amend the findings and judgment, challenging, among other things, the manner in which the judge calculated child support and the provision in the divorce judgment leaving him solely responsible for the repayment of the HELOC. The judge denied the motion without explaining her rationale for assigning sole payment responsibility of the HELOC to the husband. The husband thereafter timely appealed from the divorce judgment, challenging the alimony and child support orders, and the distribution of the marital estate.

Discussion. We first address the support orders and then the division of marital assets. With respect to the support orders, because these are reciprocal orders in which the payor of the alimony obligation is the payee of the child support obligation, we begin first with the husband's alimony obligation, and next discuss the wife's child support obligation.

1. The husband's alimony obligation. The husband argues that it was error to order him to pay alimony, principally contending that the judge miscalculated his income and failed to consider the effect of the marital debt allocation on his ability to pay alimony.

"A judge has broad discretion when awarding alimony" under the Alimony Reform Act (act), G. L. c. 208, §§ 48 - 55. Zaleski v. Zaleski, 469 Mass. 230, 235, 13 N.E.3d 967 (2014). "In reviewing both the form and the amount of an award of alimony, we examine a judge's findings to determine whether the judge considered all the relevant factors under G. L. c. 208, § 53 (a ), and whether the judge relied on any irrelevant factors." Zaleski, supra at 235-236, 13 N.E.3d 967.³ Despite the many changes brought about by the act, it did not "alter the principle that the central issue relevant to a financial award is the dependent spouse's ‘need for support and maintenance in relationship to the respective financial circumstances of the parties.’ " Hassey v. Hassey, 85 Mass. App. Ct. 518, 524-525, 11 N.E.3d 661 (2014), quoting Partridge v. Partridge, 14 Mass. App. Ct. 918, 919, 436 N.E.2d 447 (1982).

Here, the amount found by the judge to be the husband's annual gross income, $92,007.98, was the amount of the husband's "gross pay" reported by his employer on his 2018 W-2 tax form and earnings summary....