Schaffer v. Schaffer

• Decision Date: 20 January 1972
• Docket Number: No. 2,10968,Docket Nos. 10967,2
• Citation: 37 Mich.App. 711,195 N.W.2d 326
• Parties: Ica M. SCHAFFER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Allen W. SCHAFFER, Defendant-Appellee, and City Bank and Trust Company, N.A., Intervenor-Appellee
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

Page 326

195 N.W.2d 326

37 Mich.App. 711

Ica M. SCHAFFER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.Allen W. SCHAFFER, Defendant-Appellee and City Bank and Trust Company, N.A., Intervenor-Appellee.

Docket Nos. 10967, 10968.

Court of Appeals of Michigan, Division No. 2.

Jan. 20, 1972.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 29, 1972.

Released for Publication March 17, 1972.

William D. Barense, Dobson, Griffin & Barense, Ann Arbor, for plaintiff-appellant.

Stanton G. Roesch, Roesch & Delhey, Manchester, for Allen W. Schaffer.

John H. Schomer, Badgley, Domke, McVicker & Marcoux, Jackson, for City Bank and Trust Co.

Before QUINN, P.J., and J. H. GILLIS and VanVALKENBURG, ^* JJ.

J. H. GILLIS, Judge.

This is an appeal of right from a divorce judgment granted to the plaintiff wife and the division of property made pursuant thereto.Intervenorappellee, City Bank and Trust Company, did not become a party to this litigation until almost 2 years after the case was filed.The bank moved to intervene because it was the holder of approximately $391,000 of defaulted notes which ran from the parties and the corporation owned and controlled by the plaintiff wife and defendant husband.

The plaintiff has raised 5 objections to the opinion and decree of divorce entered below.Each of these objections is grounded on alleged abuses of discretion by the trial court.The first two issues pertain to the division of property.The third and fourth objections pertain to the lack of an alimony and attorney fee award to the plaintiff wife.The fifth objection was to the chancellor's actions in assigning title to plaintiff's stock to the defendant husband and thereafter dismissing plaintiff's claims against the intervenor arising out of the ownership of the stock.

Although this Court hears a divorce case De novo on the record, it will not substitute its judgment for that of the trial judge absent a showing of abuse of discretion.Heckelman v. Heckelman, 3 Mich.App. 159, 141 N.W.2d 689(1966);Hildebrandt v. Hildebrandt, 223 Mich. 352, 193 N.W. 883(1923).Such abuse is not supported by the record in this case.

In Kurtz v. Kurtz, 34 Mich.App. 34, 190 N.W.2d 689(1971), this Court had ample opportunity to observe the myriad of problems that can arise in a divorce suit where the parties each owned stock in a close-knit family corporation after a judgment of divorce has been granted to the parties.

Here the chancellor quite properly awarded all of the stock to the husband and compensated the wife by a substantial cash award, payable over a period of years.The record in the instant case discloses expert testimony presented by the plaintiff wife and defendant husband as to the valuation of the stock in question.The court's assessment of value of the corporation was much higher than that of the defendant husband's expert and much lower than that of the plaintiff wife's expert.

In Young v. Young, 354 Mich. 254, 257, 92 N.W.2d 328, 329(1958), Justice Voelker, writing for the Court in a case similar to the instant one, stated:

'There is no mathematical formula in Michigan for the settlement of this vexing problem; rather it is wisely left to the broad discretion of the learned chancellor who has the benefit--and often dubious pleasure--of having the feuding parties wrangle in his presence.See, generally, Johnson v. Johnson, 346 Mich. 418, 78 N.W.2d 216(1956).With his closer view of the entire situation he is ordinarily in a better position to make an equitable division than we.'

The record in this case establishes that the parties were married in 1940 when both parties were 25 years old.At the time of the...