Roberts v. Roberts
| Decision Date | 05 September 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. 20120302–CA.,20120302–CA. |
| Citation | 2014 UT App 211,335 P.3d 378 |
| Court | Utah Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Kristen A. ROBERTS, Petitioner and Appellee, v. Ty H. ROBERTS, Respondent and Appellant. |
Brad C. Smith and Ryan B. Wilkinson, for Appellant.
Brittany R. Brown, for Appellee.
1
Opinion
¶ 1 Ty H. Roberts (Husband) appeals the trial court's ruling ordering him to pay Kristen A. Roberts (Wife) alimony and attorney fees, denying his request for reimbursement of child care expenses, allocating to both parties the tax liability of Wife's business, and refusing to grant him a fault-based divorce or take into account Wife's extramarital affair in its alimony calculation. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand to the trial court.
¶ 2 Wife and Husband were married in September 1989 and have four children. The couple separated in June 2009 after Wife admitted to an extramarital affair. Wife filed a petition for divorce one month later, citing irreconcilable differences. Husband filed an answer and counter-petition seeking a divorce for “irreconcilable differences” or alternatively, “on the basis of [Wife]'s adultery.”
¶ 3 Both parties worked outside the home throughout their marriage. Husband worked at a bank, earning a gross monthly income of $6,886. Wife worked as a sales representative at a fashion retailer for thirteen years, but at the time of the divorce, she had opened a deli franchise. The business struggled, and Wife drew a monthly salary of $1,000 until about June 2010 and $2,000 thereafter.
¶ 4 The court issued a temporary order in September 2009 that awarded the parties joint physical custody of their three younger children but gave primary physical custody of their oldest son to Husband. Because Husband had primary custody of the couple's oldest child, Wife was ordered to pay Husband $121.23 per month in child support, and she was also required to pay $146.25 per month for her share of the children's medical and dental insurance as well as half of any out-of-pocket medical costs the children incurred. In making this determination, the court imputed to Wife a monthly income of $1,256 (minimum wage). In a second temporary order issued three months later, the court ordered Husband to pay $1,500 per month in temporary spousal support, but it later reduced that amount to $1,281.
¶ 5 The couple's oldest son turned eighteen in June 2010, and the parties agreed that the temporary child support obligations should be revisited as a result. Husband argued that the court should impute to Wife a different income when making this new calculation because he believed Wife had significantly understated her earnings from the deli business and was actually taking home as much as $3,500 per month. The child support issue was ultimately reserved for trial. After considering the evidence presented at the February 2011 trial, the court imputed to Wife a gross monthly income much higher than minimum wage but retroactively modified the temporary child support from the time of the oldest son's majority through February 2011 using the same minimum-wage income it had imputed to Wife in the second temporary order. In this regard the court explained only that “for the purposes of the temporary award it is reasonable to use the same incomes of the parties used to calculate child support in the Temporary Order.” As a result, the court awarded Wife back child support in the amount of $518 per month from July 2010 through February 2011. The court denied Husband's request to retroactively modify the award of unpaid child support using Wife's higher imputed income from trial.
¶ 6 The court ultimately entered a decree of divorce in February 2012, granting Wife a divorce from Husband based on irreconcilable differences. The parties were awarded joint physical and legal custody of their three minor children. To calculate Husband's alimony and child support obligations, the court imputed to Wife a gross monthly income of $3,000 and found that she had $4,000 in reasonable monthly expenses. Based on Husband's gross monthly income of $6,886 and monthly expenses of $4,000, the court awarded Wife $1,281 per month in permanent alimony, $381 per month in child support, and $5,000 in attorney fees. Wife was awarded her deli business with its debt, but the court ordered that both “parties shall be equally liable” for any tax liability that arose from the business for any year in which they had filed a joint tax return. The court also denied Husband's request for reimbursement for medical expenses of the children that he claimed Wife had failed to pay between July 2009 and February 2011.
¶ 7 Husband raises a number of issues on appeal. First, he challenges the trial court's decisions awarding alimony, refusing to retroactively modify the temporary child support order, and granting Wife's request for attorney fees. Because trial courts have broad discretion to award alimony, child support, and attorney fees, we will not disturb such decisions absent an abuse of discretion. Connell v. Connell, 2010 UT App 139, ¶¶ 5–7, 233 P.3d 836. That means that “as long as the court exercise[d] its discretion within the bounds and under the standards we have set and has supported its decision with adequate findings and conclusions,” we will not substitute our judgment for the trial court's. Id. ¶ 5 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
¶ 8 Second, Husband argues that the court improperly denied his request to offset temporary child support and alimony payments with medical expenses he incurred for his children during the divorce proceedings. He also contends that the court erred in awarding Wife her deli business but dividing equally between the parties the tax consequences the business incurred during their marriage. “Trial courts have considerable discretion in determining the financial interests of divorced parties,” so we will not disturb either decision unless the trial court abused its discretion. Bingham v. Bingham, 872 P.2d 1065, 1067 (Utah Ct.App.1994) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
¶ 9 Third, Husband argues that the trial court failed to take into account Wife's extramarital affair when it calculated alimony and refused to grant Husband's counter-petition for a fault-based divorce. Husband further urges us to overrule Mark v. Mark, 2009 UT App 374, 223 P.3d 476, a case the trial court relied on that instructs courts to ignore evidence of fault when making alimony determinations. See id. ¶ 20. “We review the trial court's interpretations of law for correctness.” Trubetzkoy v. Trubetzkoy, 2009 UT App 77, ¶ 10, 205 P.3d 891. Husband's final issue relates to Husband's claim that his alimony obligation ought to be terminated. Specifically, he challenges the court's determination that Wife was not cohabiting with a male friend (Friend). “While we defer to the trial court's factual findings unless they are shown to be clearly erroneous, we review its ultimate conclusion [of cohabitation] for correctness.” Levin v. Carlton–Levin, 2014 UT App 3, ¶ 9, 318 P.3d 1177 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
¶ 10 A trial court's findings of fact and conclusions of law must be “sufficiently detailed” to allow “a reviewing court to ensure that the trial court's discretionary determination was rationally based upon” the relevant facts and controlling legal principles. Connell, 2010 UT App 139, ¶ 12, 233 P.3d 836 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). We have stated that a court's findings and conclusions must be sufficiently “detailed,” including “enough subsidiary facts to disclose the steps by which the ultimate conclusion on each factual issue was reached.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In practice, this does not mean that trial courts must analyze each issue in the same depth as an appellate opinion; rather, the court's findings and conclusions must contain just enough detail to allow a reviewing court “to ascertain the basis of the trial court's decision.” Allen v. Ciokewicz, 2012 UT App 162, ¶ 42, 280 P.3d 425 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). A trial court decision with deficient findings prevents appellate courts “from effectively reviewing the trial court's decision,” and it may therefore be “remand[ed] for the entry of more-detailed findings.” Id. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
¶ 11 We conclude that the trial court's factual findings and conclusions are deficient in a number of areas, and we remand for the entry of additional findings of fact on the following issues: (1) the amount and duration of alimony awarded to Wife, (2) the denial of Husband's motion to modify the temporary child support award, and (3) the decision to award Wife attorney fees. We express no opinion on the merits of the underlying issues and emphasize that each of these questions is within a trial court's broad discretion. Our decision to remand is not meant to point the court to any particular result; rather, on remand the court ought to provide a fuller explanation for whatever conclusion it reaches.
¶ 12 Trial courts consider a number of factors when determining the amount and duration of alimony, focusing principally on the three Jones factors: “(1) the financial condition and needs of the recipient spouse, (2) the ability of the recipient spouse to produce sufficient income, and (3) the ability of the payor spouse to provide support.” Richardson v. Richardson, 2008 UT 57, ¶ 6, 201 P.3d 942 (citing Jones v. Jones, 700 P.2d 1072, 1075 (Utah 1985) ). Other relevant considerations include “the length of the marriage” and “whether the recipient spouse has custody of minor children requiring support.” Utah Code Ann. § 30–3–5(8)(a)(iv), (v) (LexisNexis 2007).2 As discussed, a...
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