Horne-Ballard v. Ballard
| Decision Date | 24 January 2020 |
| Docket Number | 2180194 |
| Parties | Gaylyn M. Horne-Ballard v. William R. Ballard |
| Court | Alabama Court of Civil Appeals |
Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0649), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is printed in Southern Reporter.
Appeal from Jefferson Circuit Court
On October 31, 2016, William R. Ballard ("the husband") filed in the Jefferson Circuit Court ("the trial court") a complaint seeking a divorce from Gaylyn M. Horne-Ballard ("the wife"). No children were born of the parties' marriage. In his complaint, the husband sought an equitable property division, an award of alimony in gross, and an attorney fee. The wife answered and counterclaimed for a divorce, also seeking an equitable property division and an award of an attorney fee.
The trial court conducted a trial at which evidence was presented ore tenus over the course of seven days, and, during that trial, it admitted into evidence numerous documentary exhibits. On August 1, 2018, the trial court entered a judgment divorcing the parties, dividing their marital property, awarding the husband alimony in gross, and awarding the husband an attorney fee. The wife filed a postjudgment motion. On October 16, 2018, the trial court amended its August 1, 2018, judgment; hereinafter, we refer to the August 1, 2018, judgment, as amended by the October 16, 2018, postjudgment order, as "the divorce judgment."1 The wife filed a timely notice of appeal.
The record indicates that the parties married on December 23, 2009, and that they separated in September 2016. The wife has a child from a previous marriage who was 4 years old when the parties married and was approximately 13 years old at the time of the entry of the divorce judgment; that child resided with the parties during their marriage.
The husband has a total of four children. The husband's three oldest children, who were born of his relationship with a previous wife, had reached the age of majority at the time of the entry of the divorce judgment. The husband also has a son who was 18 or 19 years old at the time of the entry of the divorce judgment. That son ("the teenaged son") was born of an extramarital relationship during the husband's first marriage.
When the parties married in 2009, the husband was employed as the president and general manager of a television station. In 2011, the husband's income was $411,665, and, in 2012, the husband's income totaled $1,537,615; some of the husband's 2012 income was from the sale of the husband's interest in a television business. The husband lost his employment at the television station on October 31, 2013, andhe had received approximately $210,000 in income for 2013 at that time. The husband received a payout or bonus upon the termination of his employment in October 2013 in the net amount of $419,942.50.
The husband testified that, although he received consulting income of $23,582 in 2014, he had not been employed in his field again before the trial. The husband testified that, after he lost his employment in 2013, the parties agreed that he would manage the remodeling of their marital home and be the primary caregiver for the wife's child. The wife disputed that testimony.
The wife is an anesthesiologist. Her employment changed several times during the parties' marriage. The wife's income was $650,000 in 2011, $637,888 in 2012, $571,000 in 2013, and $563,545 in 2014. In January 2015, the wife opened her own private medical practice, Ballard Pain and Wellness ("BPW"). The husband testified that he was extensively involved in forming, opening, and operating BPW, but the wife disputed the amount of the husband's involvement. The wife's income from BPW in 2015 was $42,750, and her income from BPW in 2016 was $735,923. The husband received a $500 salary fromBPW for only one month before the parties separated. However, the record indicates that he had used a company vehicle, a company credit card, and a gas card since BPW was opened and that he paid himself $25,000 in salary from BPW shortly after the parties separated.
The record also demonstrates that, when the husband lost his employment in October 2013, he initiated litigation in Florida ("the Florida child-support litigation") to reduce his $1,300 per month child-support obligation for the teenaged son. The parties do not dispute that, to hide assets for the purposes of the Florida child-support litigation, the husband moved almost all of his financial assets, including the $419,942.50 payout he received in 2013, into accounts held jointly in the names of the husband and the wife and that he eventually moved all of those assets into accounts held solely in the wife's name. The husband testified that the wife agreed with his plan and method of hiding assets.
Each party alleged misconduct on the part of the other, and each presented evidence in support of those allegations. The wife alleged that, during the marriage, the husband had had an affair. The husband answered in the negative toquestions regarding whether he had physically abused the wife. The wife admitted, during the trial, that she had had an affair in mid to late 2016. The wife also admitted that she had untruthfully denied that affair in her deposition and that she had changed her testimony only after her paramour had testified by way of deposition that the affair had occurred.
In its divorce judgment, the trial court ordered that the marital home be sold and the proceeds of that sale be divided equally between the parties, and it awarded the husband the proceeds of the sales of a lake house owned by the husband before the parties' marriage and of another property ("the Beckham Drive property") owned by the husband before the parties' marriage; in doing so, the trial court stated that it had taken into consideration the wife's payment of the mortgage indebtedness on those properties in fashioning its alimony-in-gross award. The trial court awarded the wife sole ownership of BPW, denied the husband's claim for periodic alimony, and awarded the husband $550,000 as alimony in gross. The trial court also, among other things, divided the parties' financial assets.
On appeal, the wife first argues that the trial court erred in failing to make a factual finding concerning its determination of the value of BPW, the medical practice awarded to her in the divorce judgment.2 In support of her argument, the wife cites Shewbart v. Shewbart, 19 So. 3d 223 (Ala. Civ. App. 2009). In that case, the trial court, in pertinent part, made a finding in its divorce judgment that a business owned by the parties was valued at $14,000. The wife in that case argued that the trial court had erred in reaching its determination of the value of the business, and this court agreed, explaining:
Shewbart v. Shewbart, 19 So. 3d at 232. This court noted that there are three recognized methods for determining the fair-market value of a privately held business, i.e., the income approach, the asset approach, and the market approach. Id. In reversing that part of the trial court's judgment addressing the valuation of the business, this court held that, although it was not directing what method the trial court should use to determine the value of the business, on remand the trial court was required, in determining valuation, to "assess some value to the business apart from the value of the materials used in the business." 19 So. 3d at 233.
In Blasdel v. Blasdel, 65 So. 3d 428 (Ala. Civ. App. 2010), the parties owned, among other things, a business in which the wife in that case had a 51% interest and the husband in that case had a 49% interest. An accountant who testified stated that she was not qualified to value the business, and the parties submitted to the trial court financial documents "in an effort to present evidence of the value" of the business. 65 So. 3d at 431. The wife's evidence indicated that the parties had earned substantial income from the business, but the husband's testimony was that the businesshad a $100,000 negative net worth. 65 So. 3d at 432-33. In its judgment in that case, the trial court awarded the wife $100,000 for her interest in the business. The husband argued that that determination was not supported by the evidence, and this court agreed, stating:
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