Dombrowski v. Noyes-Dombrowski

• Decision Date: 29 March 2005
• Docket Number: No. 17312.,17312.
• Citation: 273 Conn. 127,869 A.2d 164
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Eugene M. DOMBROWSKI v. Pamela NOYES-DOMBROWSKI.

869 A.2d 164

273 Conn. 127

Eugene M. DOMBROWSKI v. Pamela NOYES-DOMBROWSKI.

No. 17312.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued January 12, 2005.

Decided March 29, 2005.

Lori Welch-Rubin, with whom, on the brief, was David Rubin, New Haven, for the appellant (defendant).

Trisha M. Morris, with whom was Bernard C. Christianson, New Haven, for the appellee (plaintiff).

SULLIVAN, C.J., and BORDEN, NORCOTT, PALMER and VERTEFEUILLE, Js.

NORCOTT, J.

The sole issue in this appeal is the proper characterization and distribution of the lottery winnings of the defendant, Pamela Noyes-Dombrowski, attendant to a dissolution of marriage action. The defendant appeals¹ from the judgment of the trial court that awarded the plaintiff, Eugene M. Dombrowski, a nonmodifiable one half of the defendant's future lottery payments minus his current salary, and classified that money as alimony for the purpose of allowing the defendant to take a tax deduction for it. On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly: (1) characterized as alimony lottery proceeds that actually are marital property; and (2) considered gender-based presumptions in rendering the award. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The following relevant facts are undisputed. The plaintiff and the defendant were married on November 4, 1989. Both are high school graduates, although the plaintiff has had some additional technical training. The plaintiff was employed by Metro-North Commuter Railroad for the entire duration of the marriage. The defendant, by contrast, worked at the Knights of Columbus for the first seven years of the marriage and then no longer was employed. At the time of the dissolution on September 19, 2003, the plaintiff was forty-one years old and the defendant was forty-three; they were both in good health and did not have any children. Their marriage ultimately was dissolved on grounds of irretrievable breakdown, which the trial court noted had nothing to do with the lottery winnings.

Both parties contributed financially to their marital relationship, even though they maintained separate checking accounts and had independent social lives.² Initially, they lived in a condominium that the plaintiff owned before the marriage. Prior to the lottery win, he generally paid the expenses related to the condominium, as well as 60 percent of the joint household expenses, while the defendant paid for entertainment, as well as the remaining household expenses, commensurate with the difference in their respective salaries.

Since her early twenties, the defendant regularly spent $3 of her money several times per week purchasing lottery tickets; this was a practice that the plaintiff discouraged. In 1992, the defendant won a $7 million lottery jackpot, which she elected to receive in annual installments of approximately $384,680 over a twenty year period. The defendant initially hid the news of her winnings from her husband for five weeks. In court, she testified that she considered it to be her own money because she had purchased the ticket and the plaintiff never had supported her in that endeavor. Indeed, for the remaining time that the couple was married, the defendant had full control over all purchases made with the lottery money.

In 1995, three years after her win, the defendant used some of the lottery proceeds to purchase a home, which she put in their joint names. Additionally, she purchased a 2001 GMC truck for the plaintiff, opened joint investment accounts and began paying the majority of the bills, including the mortgage and utility bills, as well as the plaintiff's credit card bills. The defendant essentially took over the plaintiff's previous proportion of financial contributions to the marriage. Meanwhile, the defendant continued to drift further apart from the plaintiff, emotionally and otherwise, during this time, and ultimately decided to move out of their home eighteen months prior to their dissolution.³

Upon dissolution, after a hearing, the trial court concluded that the parties had treated their marriage as an economic partnership although not a social partnership; accordingly, it divided their assets so as to award the plaintiff one half of all of them, excluding the home, for which he would receive a credit. It also awarded the plaintiff the nonmodifiable sum of one half of the defendant's future annual lottery proceeds, minus his current salary,⁴ and characterized those annual payments as alimony, specifying its intentions regarding the tax consequences thereof. Specifically, the court stated that "the continuing lottery payments, one half minus the [plaintiff's] yearly salary should go to the [plaintiff] and that's pre-tax. The court would classify that as alimony so the [defendant] can take the tax deduction...." This appeal followed.

On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly characterized the lottery winnings as alimony as opposed to marital property because: (1) the trial court treated the lottery payments as marital property in its division of assets notwithstanding the label of alimony; and (2) the trial court's order is inconsistent with the definition of alimony set forth in the Internal Revenue Code. The defendant also claims that the trial court improperly based its decision regarding the division of lottery proceeds on a gender assumption in violation of General Statutes §§ 46b-81 and 46b-82.⁵ In response, the plaintiff contends that: (1) there is no merit to the defendant's argument that the trial court improperly characterized the lottery proceeds because she has not suffered any harm as a result of the alimony classification; and (2) the trial court's gender-based remark did not violate the law because it was not the basis for the trial court's order, but a response to an earlier comment made by the defendant's counsel that "my client testified that ... [s]he doesn't need a man to support her. Well, he's going out of this marriage and he can't support himself is what he's telling us, or, he's got no problem supporting himself.... He's saying that since she got lucky in a situation where she had her assets and he had his, that that stroke of [lightning], of course, I should get it." We disagree with the defendant, and, accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Preliminarily, we set forth the standard of review. "An appellate court will not disturb a trial court's orders [financial or otherwise] in domestic relations cases unless the court has abused its discretion or it is found that it could not reasonably conclude as it did, based on the facts presented.... In determining whether a trial court has abused its broad discretion in domestic relations matters, we allow every reasonable presumption in favor of the correctness of its action." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Morris v. Morris, 262 Conn. 299, 305, 811 A.2d 1283 (2003). "We apply that standard of review because it reflects the sound policy that the trial court has the unique opportunity to view the parties and their testimony, and is therefore in the best position to assess all of the circumstances surrounding a dissolution action, including such factors as the demeanor and the attitude of the parties." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Chyung v. Chyung, 86 Conn.App. 665, 668, 862 A.2d 374 (2004).

The defendant's first claim, namely, that the trial court improperly classified the lottery winnings as alimony because those winnings are essentially marital property, is unpersuasive. Although the trial court would have been within its discretion in treating the lottery award as marital property, under the circumstances of this case, it was also within the court's discretion in treating the award as an income stream and the defendant's payments from it as alimony.

Additionally, the trial court's order was consistent with both the nature and the purpose of alimony. "[T]he purpose of both periodic and lump sum alimony is to provide continuing support." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Gay v. Gay, 266 Conn. 641, 647, 835 A.2d 1 (2003). By contrast, "[t]he purpose of a property division pursuant to a dissolution proceeding is to unscramble existing marital property in order to give each spouse his or her equitable share at the time of dissolution." Smith v. Smith, 249 Conn. 265, 275, 752 A.2d 1023 (1999). In the present case, the defendant testified that she viewed her annual lottery payments as her salary. This is supported by her assumption of the lion's share of the marital expenses after her win; previously, it had been the plaintiff who had shouldered the bulk of the financial burden, commensurate with the difference in the couple's salaries. These facts suggest that the trial court was within its discretion in treating the lottery winnings as alimony.

Moreover, alimony typically is modifiable, while dispositions of marital property are not. See General Statutes § 46b-86(a).⁶ In its order, the trial court specifically stated that it was making the distribution of lottery proceeds nonmodifiable, which would have been unnecessary had the trial court intended to treat the proceeds as marital property. The trial court also unequivocally stated in its order that the payments be considered alimony. Indeed, it is difficult to see how the trial court's directive on this issue could have been more clearly expressed.⁷

We first note that, viewed properly, the trial court's order was, in effect, not an order that operated directly on the annual lottery payments. It was, instead, an order directed at the defendant to pay to the plaintiff an annual amount measured by one half of those annual payments, minus the plaintiff's annual salary. In this connection, we also note that the trial court was unable to make an order directly to the lottery commission requiring it to allocate the annual proceeds between the plaintiff and the defendant. Thus, the only way for the trial court to accomplish its...