Kohl v. Kohl
| Decision Date | 13 December 2005 |
| Docket Number | M-6112.,7359.,M-5838.,7358. |
| Citation | 806 N.Y.S.2d 35,2005 NY Slip Op 09459,24 A.D.3d 219 |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
| Parties | LESLYE KOHL, Appellant-Respondent, v. TED KOHL, Respondent-Appellant. |
Ample evidence supports the finding that the husband's loss of his first company was due to diminished business caused by adverse publicity attendant to certain criminal proceedings against him, and not a wasteful dissipation of a marital asset. The loss of the business occurred several years before the commencement of this action, and there is no evidence that the husband's criminal acts were intended to deprive the wife of a marital asset or otherwise directed against her (see Rivera v. Rivera, 206 AD2d 970 [1994]; cf. Trank v. Trank, 210 AD2d 472 [1994]). Moreover, the husband's earnings had soon risen back to the level they were before the criminal action, and the parties' standard of living did not diminish. Nor was the money given by the husband to his former wife and children of that marriage a wasteful dissipation of marital assets. Such gifts were not unreasonable in relation to the husband's income and were consistent with the type of gift giving he had engaged in throughout his marriage to the wife, which included generous gifts to her own two children from a prior marriage (see Kahn v. Kahn, 147 Misc 2d 954, 957-958 [1990]). We have considered and rejected the wife's other claims of wasteful dissipation.
The trial court properly held the wife responsible for the portion of the attorneys' fees associated with the civil forfeiture action that was a consequence of the criminal action against the husband, since the wife was a named party and availed herself of the attorneys' professional services. However, the wife should not be responsible for the loans that were used by the husband to pay legal fees and fines associated with the criminal action itself, and the trial court properly refused to treat those loans as marital debt.
The trial court properly valued the husband's independent sales and consulting business at the lower of the wife's expert's valuations. The valuation depended on whether certain purported loans to the husband were more in the nature of income than loans, which in turn depended on the credibility of the husband and persons who had given him the money. No basis exists to disturb the trial court's findings crediting the testimony of husband and his witnesses that the loans were genuine (see ...
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