Long v. Long
Decision Date | 27 September 2021 |
Docket Number | E2020-01350-COA-R3-CV |
Citation | 642 S.W.3d 803 |
Parties | Carolyn Diane LONG v. Steven Lawrence LONG |
Court | Tennessee Court of Appeals |
Eric J. Burch, Manchester, Tennessee, for the appellant, Carolyn Diane Long.
Daniel H. Rader, IV, Cookeville, Tennessee, for the appellee, Steven Lawrence Long.
Following a bench trial in this divorce action, the trial court entered an order in October 2018, granting the parties a divorce and distributing the marital estate. Upon the wife's appeal, this Court vacated the trial court's distribution of marital property and remanded, directing the trial court to make sufficient findings of fact and conclusions of law, pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 52.01, concerning the classification and valuation of various real estate and real estate partnership assets. Following an evidentiary hearing on remand, the trial court entered a final order in September 2020. Noting that the parties had stipulated that the wife's interests in a realty company and two property partnerships were separate property, the trial court found that the wife's partnership interest in a fourth realty enterprise at issue was marital property and also found that several specific realty assets were marital property. The trial court determined its valuation of each property or property interest and, pursuant to the factors provided in Tennessee Code Annotated § 36-4-121(c), set forth what it found to be an equitable distribution of the marital property. Wife has appealed. Discerning no reversible error, we affirm.
The plaintiff, Carolyn Diane Long ("Wife"), and the defendant, Steven Lawrence Long ("Husband"), have been involved in this action since Wife filed a complaint for divorce in October 2014 in the Cumberland County Probate and Family Court ("trial court"). This matter initially came before this Court on appeal in Long v. Long , No. E2018-01868-COA-R3-CV, 2019 WL 3986281 (Tenn. Ct. App. Aug. 23, 2019) (" Long I "). In Long I , this Court vacated the trial court's division of marital property and remanded "with instructions to make sufficient findings of fact and conclusions of law as required by Tenn. R. Civ. P. 52.01," specifically as to the trial court's classification of Wife's partnership interest in a partnership entity known as Pioneer Properties, the values of specific properties, and the trial court's overall distribution of marital property. See Long I , 2019 WL 3986281, at *1, 9. This Court set forth the following factual and procedural background in Long I :
On appeal in Long I , Wife raised issues concerning whether the trial court had made sufficient findings of fact and conclusions of law and whether the trial court had erred by classifying her interest in Pioneer Properties as marital property. Id. at *2. Husband raised an issue concerning the trial court's classification of the property located on George Smith Road as Wife's separate property. Id. Because this Court in Long I affirmed the "trial court's judgment finding the George Smith Road property to be wife's separate asset," see id. at *9, the classification of that property was not at issue on remand. Concerning the trial court's lack of sufficient findings, this Court stated in pertinent part:
[T]he trial court did not make a finding regarding the value of any of the assets, including those assigned to wife as her separate property, and those upon which the parties disagreed as to their value. The trial court's order does not refer to Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-4-121(c), or make a finding regarding any of the factors prescribed therein.
Id. This Court vacated the trial court's division of marital property and "remanded for appropriate findings of fact and conclusions of law pursuant to Tenn. R. Civ. P. 52.01." Id.
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...this classification has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the asset is separate property." Long v. Long, 642 S.W.3d 803, 819 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2021); see Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-4-121(b)(1)(A) (defining "marital property" as "all real and personal property, both tangi......