Maguire v. Maguire

• Decision Date: 05 May 1992
• Docket Number: No. 14302,14302
• Citation: 608 A.2d 79,222 Conn. 32
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Carol Conover MAGUIRE v. Walter Laurence MAGUIRE et al.

Page 79

608 A.2d 79

222 Conn. 32

Carol Conover MAGUIRE v. Walter Laurence MAGUIRE et al.

No. 14302.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 4, 1991.

Decided May 5, 1992.

Wesley W. Horton, Hartford, with whom were Richard B. Cramer, New Haven Susan M. Cormier and, on the brief, Jeffrey A. Hoberman, Hartford for appellant (named defendant).

Gary I. Cohen, with whom was David R. Schaefer, New Haven, for appellee (plaintiff).

Before PETERS, C.J., and SHEA, CALLAHAN, GLASS, COVELLO, BORDEN and BERDON, JJ. ¹

BERDON, Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment dissolving the parties' marriage wherein the defendant, ² Walter L. Maguire, claims that the trial court mistakenly: (1) corrected in an articulation an error made in a prior articulation; (2) ordered the defendant to reimburse the plaintiff, Carol C. Maguire, the amount of $50,000 for her counsel fees; (3) awarded personal property to the plaintiff, except for property owned by the defendant, without stating how any potential disputes that might arise over the ownership of the property should be resolved; and (4) cited as authority in making all of its awards, including periodic alimony, only General Statutes § 46b-81 and later declared in an articulation that it had relied upon the criteria of General Statutes § 46b-82 for the award of periodic alimony. ³ 3] The defendant appealed to the Appellate Court and we transferred the appeal to this court in accordance with Practice Book § 4023. We affirm the trial court's judgment except for the award of counsel fees to the plaintiff.

The following facts are relevant. The trial, extending over a period of approximately one month, concluded on December 6, 1989. On February 23, 1990, the trial court rendered a judgment dissolving the marriage and making financial orders. In its detailed memorandum of decision, the trial court set forth the causes of the marital breakdown, distributed the marital assets and ordered periodic alimony. The court described the financial relationship between the parties during their forty year marriage as follows: "In all the years of their marriage as he bought, and sold, and rented out real estate, and dealt in the stock market, the defendant never placed any property in his wife's name singly or jointly with him. The house she has lived in for many years is owned by the defendant as [are] all the other real properties and all personal property. He has provided for their children who are totally self-sufficient. He has provided for the future for his secretary and for himself, but not for his wife. He dismissed her fears and concerns for her future with the comment 'the State will take care of you.' He argued, at the trial of this case, that her real estate earnings would provide her with a comfortable living. I disagree. This woman is sixty years old, and past her peak as an active real estate saleswoman, and the real estate business is in shambles at present and likely to continue so for a while. She was not asked or permitted by the defendant to take part in his business ventures through the years, and by his view has no right to any of the material wealth he has generated. Her participation as the linch-pin of the family, as the wife, lover, mother, homemaker, nurse, confidant, etc., means, and has meant, nothing to the defendant who indicates that the monthly allowance the plaintiff receives, the home she lives in and the knowledge that he pays the bills, are all she is entitled to. The defendant actually stated in court that his only fault is that he has been 'too generous' to his wife." The trial court concluded that it would be equitable to divide their net assets equally between them.

In making the division, the valuation of the assets became an important issue. The single most valuable asset was 1,666,902 shares of ORS Corporation (ORS) stock, which represented 25 percent of the outstanding shares of the company. At the time of trial, the ORS stock was publicly traded over-the-counter and the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) reported its market price as $1.25 per share. On the basis of this per share price, the stock in ORS had a market value of $2,083,628, the value that the plaintiff urged the trial court to accept. Arthur Haut, a certified public accountant and adjunct professor at the Yale Law School, was called as a witness by the plaintiff to support her valuation of the ORS stock. Haut testified that although the number of shares held by the defendant could give him working control of the corporation, which would result in a greater market value, the publicly quoted NASD market price was the appropriate basis for valuation of the ORS stock and, therefore, he supported the plaintiff's valuation. The defendant argued that the stock should be valued at only $566,368, approximately 25 percent of the NASD market value, because of certain trading restrictions imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Accordingly, the parameters for the valuation of the ORS stock, as argued by the parties, were the defendant's low of $566,368 and the plaintiff's high of $2,083,628.

On April 20, 1990, the defendant took this timely appeal. ⁴ On July 12, 1990, the defendant moved for an articulation (articulation I), pursuant to Practice Book § 4051 ⁵ requesting, in part, an articulation of the valuation that the trial court had placed on the ORS stock. The trial referee who presided over the trial was on vacation until October 15, 1990, and the motion was not called to his attention until sometime after that date. On November 8, 1990, the trial court granted the motion for articulation I and responded that the 1,666,902 shares of ORS stock had an aggregate value of "[o]ver $4,000,000." On December 10, 1990, the defendant filed his brief in the Appellate Court, arguing, in part, that the court's valuation of the ORS stock was "clearly erroneous."

On December 18, 1990, the plaintiff moved for a second articulation (articulation II) requesting, in part, an articulation of the valuation that the trial court had placed on the ORS stock. The defendant moved to strike the second request for articulation on the grounds that it was untimely, it duplicated articulation I, it was an attempt to have the court revalue assets and the defendant would be prejudiced because he already had filed his brief in the Appellate Court. On March 15, 1991, the trial court denied the defendant's motion to strike and granted articulation II. The court corrected the valuation it had placed on the ORS stock from "[o]ver $4,000,000" to $2,083,628. The court added the following regarding its valuation of the stock: "The court's answer to the defendant-appellants' question 1b in his motion for articulation dated July 12, 1990 [articulation I] was simply a mistake, to be corrected, and not to be persisted in and compounded. I have corrected my error to show the market price of Mr. Maguire's stock to be $2,083,628 which is the result of the current market price per share times the number of shares. ($1.25 X 1,666,902)." Subsequently, the defendant filed in the Appellate Court a motion for review of the trial court's failure to strike the motion for articulation II and to strike its contents. The Appellate Court granted the motion for review, but denied the relief sought. The Appellate Court, sua sponte, permitted the defendant to file a substitute brief, which was done by the defendant. Thereafter, the appeal was transferred to this court.

I

The defendant argues that articulation II, relative to the valuation of the ORS stock, was untimely and improper. It is clear that the Practice Book provision has no time limits within which to file a motion for articulation. Practice Book § 4051. Accordingly, the time in which it may be filed is left to the sound discretion of the trial court, subject to review. Practice Book § 4054; ⁶ see W. Moller & W. Horton, Connecticut Practice, Supreme Court and Appellate Court Rules and Forms (1992) § 4051, authors' comments, p. 128.

We first note that upon the granting and filing of articulation II, the defendant sought review by the Appellate Court pursuant to Practice Book § 4054, on the same grounds upon which he relies in this appeal. The Appellate Court, on review, refused to strike articulation II. Although we are not bound by that prior decision; see State v. Holloway, 22 Conn.App. 265, 276, 577 A.2d 1064, cert. denied, 215 Conn. 819, 576 A.2d 547 (1990); under the facts of this case, we see no reason to disturb the decision of the Appellate Court.

In State v. Wilson, 199 Conn. 417, 513 A.2d 620 (1986), we had the occasion to consider the substantive parameters of the motion for articulation. In Wilson, we held that "an articulation presupposes ambiguity or incompleteness in the legal reasoning of the trial court in reaching its decision. An articulation may be necessary where the trial court fails completely to state any basis for its decision ... or where the basis, although stated, is unclear." (Citations omitted.) Id., at 434, 513 A.2d 620.

When the trial court filed articulation I and placed a value of "[o]ver $4,000,000" on the ORS stock, an obvious ambiguity developed between the trial court's valuation and the trial court's expressed intent to divide the net assets equally between the parties, as stated in its original memorandum of decision. Finding the stock to have a value of $4,000,000, and assigning the shares of that stock to the defendant would have resulted in the defendant receiving substantially more than 50 percent of the net assets as intended by the trial court. See pages 83-84, infra. It was appropriate for the plaintiff to file a motion for articulation to have the court clarify its decision. State v. Wilson, supra, at 435-36, 513 A.2d 620. Accordingly, we conclude that the second motion for articulation was timely filed and that the trial court appropriately corrected the ambiguity between its intent to divide the...