Matsuo v. Matsuo
| Decision Date | 13 November 1986 |
| Citation | 508 N.Y.S.2d 630,124 A.D.2d 864 |
| Parties | Stephanie MATSUO, Appellant, v. Yoshiro MATSUO, Respondent. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
John H. Owen, Cooperstown, for appellant.
Konstanty & Harlem (James E. Konstanty, of counsel), Oneonta, for respondent.
Before MAHONEY, P.J., and KANE, CASEY, WEISS and LEVINE, JJ.
Appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court ordering equitable distribution of the parties' marital property, entered April 1, 1985 in Otsego County, upon a decision of the court at Trial Term (Kuhnen, J.), without a jury.
Plaintiff commenced this action for divorce in June 1982 and was granted a divorce and an equitable distribution of the marital property by a judgment rendered in March 1985. At the time the action was commenced the parties had been married 18 years and their two children were 18 and 13 years of age. Defendant is a medical doctor who conducts a solo practice through a professional corporation. Plaintiff has a nursing degree but has never worked outside the home except for brief periods in her husband's office. Her time has been devoted primarily to raising the couple's two minor children and to household duties.
The major assets of the marriage were the medical practice and the large marital home in the Village of Cooperstown, Otsego County. Trial Term determined that these assets as well as all the other marital property should be divided by the parties equally. It was ordered that the marital home be sold, proceeds to be divided, and as to other marital property, plaintiff was awarded the household furnishings, an automobile and a distributive share of $106,615. Plaintiff was also awarded custody of the minor child and defendant was ordered to provide support and to pay for the higher education of both the children. Finally, Trial Term determined that plaintiff was capable of becoming self-supporting in the future and, accordingly, ordered that defendant's obligation to provide maintenance would terminate in 1992. This appeal by plaintiff ensued.
Plaintiff contends that Trial Term's instructions for dividing the proceeds from the sale of the marital residence are ambiguous and could lead to results unfair to her. Defendant, on the other hand, contends that the distributive share granted to the wife ($106,615) is the total amount to which plaintiff is entitled and that any proceeds from the sale of the house which go to plaintiff are to be credited against that amount. Both parties misconstrue Trial Term's instruction. Trial Term provided for an equal division of net proceeds after amounts necessary to pay off outstanding mortgages, loans and closing costs. Further, Trial Term provided that payments made by defendant after commencement of this action until July 1, 1985 or the closing date, if earlier, would be credited in dividing the proceeds. Clearly, Trial Term was not referring to all payments made by defendant during that time, but only those related to the house (i.e., payments on two mortgages, a home improvement loan and a pool loan). The net effect of the credit adjustment is that each party bears half of the costs of the payments made between commencement of the action and July 1, 1985. Since Trial Term ordered the obligations to be divided equally between the parties after July 1985, those payments are excluded from the credit adjustment.
Since Trial Term arrived at the sum of $106,615 following division of the parties' personalty, plaintiff's share of the sale of the marital residence would be in addition to her distributive award. Thus, according to Trial Term's decision, plaintiff is to receive her one-half share of the proceeds of the sale of the marital residence and defendant is to assign his one-half interest to her as partial payment of her $106,615 distributive share. We reject defendant's contention that both halves of the house proceeds were to be credited against plaintiff's distributive share. This would have deprived plaintiff of any income from the sale of the marital residence. Trial Term clearly intended that only defendant's one-half interest, upon assignment to plaintiff, would be credited against her distributive award...
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