Maldonado v. Maldonado

• Decision Date: 24 July 2018
• Docket Number: NO. 01-16-00747-CV,01-16-00747-CV
• Citation: 556 S.W.3d 407
• Parties: Eleazar MALDONADO, Appellant v. Silvia MALDONADO, Appellee
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

556 S.W.3d 407

Eleazar MALDONADO, Appellant

v.Silvia MALDONADO, Appellee

NO. 01-16-00747-CV

Court of Appeals of Texas, Houston (1st Dist.).

Opinion issued July 24, 2018

Raphaell V. Wilkins, The Wilkins Law Firm, P.C., Houston, TX 77004, for Appellant.

Stuart N. Wilson, Wilson & Associates, P.C., Houston, TX 77027, for Appellee.

Panel consists of Justices Jennings, Massengale, and Caughey.

Michael Massengale, Justice

This is an appeal from a divorce decree. Before trial, the trial court rendered partial summary judgment confirming that two businesses formed during the marriage were the wife’s separate property. After a bench trial on the remaining issues, the court found that the husband had committed waste and fraud, and it divided the marital estate.

Appellant Eleazar Maldonado raises six issues on appeal. First he challenges the partial summary judgment, arguing that there are questions of fact regarding the characterization of the businesses. He also challenges the legal and factual sufficiency of the evidence to support the court’s findings of fact regarding waste, fraud on the community estate, and the value of used copiers. And he challenges the division of the marital estate.

Because we conclude that the trial court erred by ruling that one of the businesses was the separate property of appellee Silvia Maldonado, we remand for further proceedings, including a reevaluation of the division of property. The legal and factual sufficiency issues regarding waste and fraud on the community are intertwined with Eleazar’s challenge to the division of the property, which must be reevaluated by the trial court on remand, and therefore we need not address them now.

The divorce decree ordered Eleazar to pay Silvia $27,500 as a sanction for disposing of used copy machines in violation of an injunction that prohibited both spouses from "reducing the value of the property of one or both the parties." To the extent Eleazar purports to challenge this award, the issues are inadequately briefed.

Accordingly, we reverse the division of property, and we remand the case to the trial court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Background

Eleazar and Silvia Maldonado were married in 1988. At that time, Eleazar worked as a wastewater operator, and Silvia worked for a document production company. Two years later, they formed Document Services of Texas, Inc. Silvia was named as the owner of all of the stock issued by the new company. DST provided litigation support, such as copying documents and retrieving medical records. Silvia worked at DST from its inception, and Eleazar began working for the company in the early or mid-1990s. From 2005 to 2013, Eleazar handled finances for DST, while Silvia focused on marketing, production, and quality control. In 2006, Eleazar and Silvia formed ESBEC, LLC, which purchased a building used as DST’s place of business.

Throughout the marriage, DST was the Maldonados' primary source of income. Despite the long hours Silvia worked and the volume of DST’s business, Eleazar repeatedly reported that they had no money because clients were not paying their bills. In 2011, Silvia began investigating their personal and business finances. After locating bank statements and business financial records, she discovered large sums of money had been withdrawn from their personal and business accounts and could not be reconciled with their expenses. Statements from one business checking account were missing, and other bank statements showed multiple and frequent transfers among the personal and business accounts. Silvia confronted Eleazar about the missing money, and he told her that she "would never find it," nor would she miss it because she had everything she needed.

Nevertheless, Silvia repeatedly questioned Eleazar about the missing money. After an argument at DST’s office, Eleazar gave Silvia a signed and notarized letter regarding his interest in DST and ESBEC:

September 7, 2012

I Eleazar Maldonado Sr., I am writing this letter to give all my right in ownership to Silvia Maldonado. All properties and business are including below. Also, any savings or checking accounts that we might have together.

1) [redacted in clerk’s record]

2) ESBEC

4201 Caroline

Houston, Texas 77004

3) Discovery Services of Texas, Inc.

4201 Caroline

Houston, Texas 77004

4) [redacted in clerk’s record]

Sworn to and subscribe[d] before me on the 7 day of September 2012[.]

A year later, Silvia filed for divorce. Before trial, she filed a motion for partial summary judgment seeking a determination that DST, ESBEC, and other real and personal property were her separate property. She based her summary-judgment motion on Eleazar’s 2012 letter, which she attached to the motion, along with an affidavit. In her affidavit, she averred:

5. We both signed this document during our marriage. [Eleazar] signed this agreement to memorialize the gift transfer of the property referred to therein because it was his desire to give me the remaining community assets after I had accused him of embezzling our community assets, which I discovered was true. I had expressed an interest to [Eleazar] in taking some time off from our business (Discovery Services of Texas, Inc.) because I had been working so long without a break. Upon hearing this, [Eleazar] conveyed to me that there was never enough money for the family, insinuating that I couldn't take a break because the family needed me to continue to work these long hours to make money to support them. Upon hearing this, I expressed to [Eleazar] that I knew of no real reason why there was never any money, because I was aware of the amount of time I was putting into the business and the money the business was bringing in. The only explanation for having no money was that [Eleazar] must be embezzling the monies from both the company and our personal accounts. Upon being accused of embezzling funds, [Eleazar] became defensive and prepared and signed a document giving me all of our other community assets, and stated that if I thought he had embezzled all of this money, then he would give and gift me all of our remaining community assets. Respondent is the one who prepared the document, listed the assets, signed it and had it notarized before he gave it to me. I signed the document in 2014.

6. After the execution of this document, [Eleazar] gave it to me, and I accepted it and the property listed therein. I was at the time the 100% shareholder of Discovery Services of Texas, Inc. as evidenced in Exhibit A-2 attached hereto.

....

7. Both [Eleazar] and I signed the agreement voluntarily. I did not use force or trick to make [Eleazar] sign. Rather, he signed of his own free will.

Silvia made no specific mention of ESBEC in her affidavit.

Eleazar did not deny that he wrote, signed, and delivered this letter to Silvia. Instead, he argued that she had judicially admitted that the businesses were community property, that he was under duress when he wrote the letter, that his intention in writing the letter was to mollify his wife rather than to give her property, and that he never delivered any property to her.

In an affidavit supporting his response to the motion for partial summary judgment, Eleazar averred that when he wrote the letter, he was "under unspeakable emotional distress." He said that near the end of their marriage, Silvia became "distant" and "verbally combative," "screaming and cursing" at home and at work. According to Eleazar, Silvia accused him of adultery and embezzlement, embarrassed him in front of their employees, and threatened to divorce him. He said that he wrote the letter after a particularly contentious incident at the office, but he stated, "I did not sign the letter with the intent to give any of my interest in our property to Silvia. I signed the letter to calm Silvia down."

Eleazar also argued that he never relinquished access to any property mentioned in the letter, and he never signed any written conveyances of property. He averred: "no change in ownership was ever made to the entity ESBEC, which is owned by Silvia and me." He also attached two motions which, he contended, included judicial admissions in his favor on the question of whether he had gifted his community interest to Silvia. These motions were Silvia’s motion for temporary orders and a motion to disqualify Eleazar’s attorney.

In April 2016, the court granted the motion for partial summary judgment in part, confirming that DST and ESBEC were Silvia’s separate property and denying the motion in all other respects. After a bench trial on the remaining issues, the trial court entered the divorce decree and filed findings of fact and conclusions of law.

As part of the final divorce decree, the trial court awarded Silvia $27,500 as a sanction for Eleazar’s violation of a court-ordered injunction that prohibited the parties from "destroying, removing, concealing, encumbering, transferring or otherwise harming or reducing the value of the property of one or both of the parties." While the divorce was pending, Eleazar took several copiers and recycled them for $400, the value of the usable scrap metal. Silvia testified at trial that they were necessary business equipment and that they had a replacement cost of $55,000.

Eleazar appealed.

Analysis

I. Appellate jurisdiction

We begin by addressing a challenge to our jurisdiction to entertain this appeal. Although not raised as a separate or independently briefed issue, Silvia suggested a jurisdictional defect in her appellate brief’s summary of argument section, and her counsel emphasized the jurisdictional challenge at oral argument. These were not preferred ways to bring a jurisdictional issue to our attention.¹ Nevertheless, since we always have an obligation to confirm our own jurisdiction, and because Silvia’s counsel raised the issue so emphatically at oral argument, we will first address our appellate jurisdiction.

In her brief, Silvia asserts that we "do not have jurisdiction to look behind" the trial court...