Helm v. Helm
| Citation | 873 N.E.2d 83 |
| Decision Date | 05 September 2007 |
| Docket Number | No. 01A04-0703-CV-175.,01A04-0703-CV-175. |
| Parties | Donna J. HELM, Appellant-Respondent, v. Steven D. HELM, Appellee-Petitioner. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Julie-Marie Brown, Decatur, IN, Attorney for Appellant.
Joseph M. Johnson, II, Decatur, IN, Attorney for Appellee.
Respondent-Appellant Donna Helm appeals from the trial court's division of the marital estate following the dissolution of her marriage to Petitioner-Appellee Steven Helm. We reorder and restate Donna's claims as whether the trial court erred in excluding unpaid future lottery payments from the marital estate and whether such exclusion, if erroneous, constituted harmless error. We affirm.
In December of 1987, Steven Helm won an Ohio lottery prize of $3,000,000, to be paid in twenty annual installments of $150,000. After taxes, Steven netted approximately $117,000 from each annual payment. Steven had received two lottery payments by the time he married Donna Helm on May 15, 1989. On October 21, 2005, Steven filed a petition for dissolution of marriage.
On January 10, 2007, by which time the last two annual lottery payments had been received, the trial court entered its dissolution decree. The trial court's order provided, in relevant part:
4. That the marital estate consists of the following:
. . .
It is also noted that the two (2) lottery checks received subsequent to the filing of the Petition for Dissolution of Marriage have been included in the marital estate, based on the actual amount received of $117,000.00.
. . . .
In the case at hand, Petitioner, Steven D. Helm, won the lottery before the parties married. While he commingled the proceeds every year, the lottery was vested in him alone. The parties invested a substantial amount of the lottery proceeds after taxes and still have that money. The parties agreed upon equal division of the commingled, invested proceeds. As to the lottery proceeds to be received after the filing of the Petition for Dissolution, that would seem to be traceable to his premarital efforts, albeit fortuitous efforts. Such circumstance seems no different from any other traceable asset acquired pre-marriage. In view of these circumstances, the Court believes that the statutory presumption of an equal division has been clearly rebutted and the Court finds husband's proposed division of the marital estate just and reasonable.
5. The marital estate should be divided as follows:
WIFE
2003 Pontiac $ 14,000.00
Marital residence and contents $225,000.00
Doll collection $ 1,000.00
Wife's IRA accounts $ 46,290.32
Christianson art prints $ 15,000.00
Stock et al. ($748,855.00 -
$117,000.00 = $631,855 ÷ $315,927.50)
$315,927.50
___________
Total to wife: $617,217.82
HUSBAND
1997 Chevrolet Truck $ 7,000.00
Lake home (subject to Life Estate
and $50,000.00 owed to Steve's
mother) $325,000.00
Kaleidoscope collection $ 1,000.00
Steve's IRA and PERF $ 87,300.00
Florida Time Share $ 10,000.00
Stock et al. ($315,927.50 +
$117,000.00) $432,927.50
Lottery check due (12/06) $117,000.00
___________
Total to husband: $980,027.75[1]
On February 9, 2007, Donna filed a Motion to Reconsider and Motion to Correct Errors, which the trial court denied on February 20, 2007. The trial court's order provides, in relevant part:
Lotteries are a recent phenomenon nationally, such that no cases on p[o]int were found. In general, lottery winnings during the marriage should be shared equally. Lottery winnings following separation (post filing) go to the winning party absent dire circumstances of the other spouse and post dissolution winnings affect only child support. While lottery winnings are a game of chance, business opportunity and inheritance are equally a matter of good fortune. It does not seem appropriate to create a special category and treat it differently.
The general law seems to be that absent special consideration such as dire circumstances the pre-marital property payable to the Petitioner post-filing for dissolution would pass to the Petitioner. The Court decided that the lottery proceeds to be received in the name of Steven D. Helm which he had won prior to the marriage and receivable post separation would go to Steven D. Helm. No dire circumstances were presented.
Donna now appeals the trial court's distribution of the marital estate.
Where, as here, the trial court sua sponte enters specific findings of fact and conclusions, we review its findings and conclusions to determine whether the evidence supports the findings, and whether the findings support the judgment. Fowler v. Perry, 830 N.E.2d 97, 102 (Ind.Ct. App.2005). We will set aside the trial court's findings and conclusions only if they are clearly erroneous. Id. A judgment is clearly erroneous when a review of the record leaves us with a firm conviction that a mistake was made. Id. We neither reweigh the evidence nor assess the witnesses' credibility, and consider only the evidence most favorable to the judgment. Id. Further, Id. Donna argues that the trial court erred in excluding the 2005 and 2006 lottery payments2 (i.e., the payments received after Steven filed his dissolution petition) from the marital estate and in departing from the statutory presumption of an equal split of the marital estate.
Indiana Code section 31-15-7-4 provides that the marital estate that the trial court must divide in a dissolution proceeding is comprised of the property owned or acquired by either party before the "final separation of the parties[,]" which is defined as "the date of filing of the petition for dissolution of marriage[.]" Ind.Code § 31-9-2-46. In other words, the marital estate is set at the time of the filing of the dissolution petition, which, in this case, was before the last two lottery payments were received. In this context, however, "property" is not limited just to property in-hand when the dissolution petition is filed.
While "[i]t has long been the law in this State that future earnings are not considered part of the marital estate for purposes of property division[,]" Beckley v. Beckley, 822 N.E.2d 158, 160 (Ind.2005), a right to receive future payments can be considered property. Some of these instances are governed by statute. Indiana Code section 31-9-2-98 provides, in relevant part, that
`[p]roperty' . . . means all the assets of either party or both parties, including:
. . .
(2) the right to receive pension or retirement benefits that are not forfeited upon termination of employment or that are vested (as defined in Section 411 of the Internal Revenue Code) but that are payable after the dissolution of marriage; and
(3) the right to receive disposable retired or retainer pay (as defined in 10 U.S.C. 1408(a)) acquired during the marriage that is or may be payable after the dissolution of marriage.
Additionally, Indiana Courts have, on occasion, determined that certain rights to future payment constitute "property" to be included in a marital estate, even if not covered by the above statute. See Leisure v. Leisure, 589 N.E.2d 1163, 1170 (Ind.Ct. App.1992), reh'g denied (concluding that the predecessor to Indiana Code section 31-9-2-98 did not "purport to exclude property" and that payments not covered by 10 U.S.C. 1408 may nevertheless be considered property). For example, in Henry v. Henry, 758 N.E.2d 991, 994 (Ind. Ct.App.2001), we concluded that "matured" stock options that could have been converted into cash prior to the final dissolution hearing were to be included in the marital estate. Also, in Sedwick v. Sedwick, 446 N.E.2d 8, 10 (Ind.Ct.App.1983), we concluded that future payments from a structured settlement annuity accepted in payment for services rendered constituted property within the marital estate.
The common denominator in all of the above examples is whether the interest in the future payment is "vested." As we have noted, "Indiana's `one pot' theory prohibits the exclusion of any asset in which a party has a vested interest from the scope of the trial court's power to divide and award." Hann v. Hann, 655 N.E.2d 566, 569 (Ind.Ct.App.1995), trans. denied (emphasis supplied). "The word `vest' generally means either vesting in possession or vesting in interest." In re Marriage of Preston, 704 N.E.2d 1093, 1097 (I...
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