Dreves v. Dreves, No. 91-093
| Docket Nº | No. 91-093 |
| Citation | 628 A.2d 558, 160 Vt. 330 |
| Case Date | June 11, 1993 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Vermont |
Page 558
v.
Richard F. DREVES.
Page 559
[160 Vt. 331] Catherine E. Clark and Gregory Jeffers, Law Clerk (on the brief), Burlington, for plaintiff-appellant.
Paul D. Jarvis of Jarvis & Kaplan, Burlington, for defendant-appellee.
Before [160 Vt. 330] ALLEN, C.J., and GIBSON, DOOLEY, MORSE and JOHNSON, JJ.
[160 Vt. 331] ALLEN, Chief Justice.
Plaintiff appeals from an order of the Grand Isle Family Court distributing the marital assets and declining to award maintenance. We reverse.
The parties married in 1984 and separated in January 1990. Plaintiff is now forty-four years old and defendant is age fifty. Before the marriage, plaintiff lived in Pennsylvania, where she earned $19,000 annually as an office manager. After she married defendant, she moved to Vermont and was not employed for the first two years. The trial court characterized plaintiff's unemployment as resulting from a mutual agreement, but plaintiff argues it was at defendant's insistence. Plaintiff is currently a personnel administration supervisor earning $28,000 annually. Defendant earns $50,000 annually at IBM.
The parties initially lived in defendant's Westford home, and then purchased a home in Grand Isle in 1984 for $107,000, $70,000 of which came from defendant's funds and the balance from a mortgage of about $37,000. The court found that the value of the house doubled during the years it was owned by the parties, adding $107,000 in value, for a total of $214,000. At the conclusion of the marriage, the parties obtained a home equity loan, thereby increasing the total mortgage indebtedness to about $47,000. Much of the home equity loan was used to finance plaintiff's purchase of a new $16,000 car. The resulting net value of the home was about $167,000. Based on the court's finding as to the current net equity in the house, the total increase[160 Vt. 332] in the net value of the house during the marriage was approximately $97,000 ($167,000, less the initial $70,000 net value upon purchase of the house).
The court awarded plaintiff $37,000, the car she had purchased (free of the home equity indebtedness related to it, which defendant assumes under the order), personalty in her possession, and the balance of her future college tuition and cost of books not met by her employer (which was paying ninety percent). No specific value was assigned to the tuition and books.
Defendant received, in addition to the house, an Investors Diversified Services investment account valued at $35,502, a tax-deferred savings plan at IBM valued at $30,947, an IBM pension plan valued at $40,007, and an IRA account valued at $22,106, totalling $128,562, $105,000 of which had been acquired during the marriage, according to plaintiff. The court did not make findings on the increase in value in the investment and retirement plans, did not rule on plaintiff's contention that reasonable value be assigned to her contribution as homemaker during the marriage, and did not award her maintenance, which she had sought as an alternative to her request for a share of the marital property. The present appeal followed.
Plaintiff argues first that the court erred in finding that the current value of the homeplace was only $214,000. We disagree. Plaintiff's main argument is that the court misunderstood the testimony of
Page 560
her expert witness, who testified that "[w]ithout any kind of improvement, I would suspect that ... that property would have doubled in value." Plaintiff testified that there were extensive improvements to the property, and the...To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Kasser v. Kasser, No. 03-065.
...worth $40,000, and she will be named as a beneficiary in husband's life insurance policy. ¶ 35. This case is not like Dreves v. Dreves, 160 Vt. 330, 628 A.2d 558 (1993), on which wife relies. In that case, we reversed the family court's property distribution where the wife received 12.5% of......
-
State v. Hemingway, No. 11–233.
...was sufficient basis on which to revoke that defendant's probation, even prior to the beginning of the probationary period. Id. at 355, 628 A.2d at 558. Thus, the obvious distinguishing factor between St. Francis and this case is that the defendant in St. Francis had, in fact, signed a prob......
-
Kanaan v. Kanaan, No. 91-378
...evidence. See Klein, 150 Vt. at 471, 555 A.2d at 385. The court is not bound to follow the opinions of expert witnesses, Dreves v. Dreves, 160 Vt. 330, 332, 628 A.2d 558, 560 (1993), a principle that is obvious where the testimony of experts is in conflict. Although it is better practice to......
-
Wade v. Wade, No. 04-045.
...a twelve-year marriage. Neither of the two cases that the dissent relies on provides any support for this position. In Dreves v. Dreves, 160 Vt. 330, 628 A.2d 558 (1993), we reversed, based on lack of sufficient findings, a property division in a six-year marriage that gave the wife approxi......
-
Kasser v. Kasser, No. 03-065.
...worth $40,000, and she will be named as a beneficiary in husband's life insurance policy. ¶ 35. This case is not like Dreves v. Dreves, 160 Vt. 330, 628 A.2d 558 (1993), on which wife relies. In that case, we reversed the family court's property distribution where the wife received 12.5% of......
-
State v. Hemingway, No. 11–233.
...was sufficient basis on which to revoke that defendant's probation, even prior to the beginning of the probationary period. Id. at 355, 628 A.2d at 558. Thus, the obvious distinguishing factor between St. Francis and this case is that the defendant in St. Francis had, in fact, signed a prob......
-
Kanaan v. Kanaan, No. 91-378
...evidence. See Klein, 150 Vt. at 471, 555 A.2d at 385. The court is not bound to follow the opinions of expert witnesses, Dreves v. Dreves, 160 Vt. 330, 332, 628 A.2d 558, 560 (1993), a principle that is obvious where the testimony of experts is in conflict. Although it is better practice to......
-
Wade v. Wade, No. 04-045.
...a twelve-year marriage. Neither of the two cases that the dissent relies on provides any support for this position. In Dreves v. Dreves, 160 Vt. 330, 628 A.2d 558 (1993), we reversed, based on lack of sufficient findings, a property division in a six-year marriage that gave the wife approxi......