Southern v. Southern

• Decision Date: 31 January 2018
• Docket Number: No. 1665,Supreme Court No. S-16007,1665
• Court: Supreme Court of Alaska (US)
• Parties: BENJAMIN S., Appellant, v. STEPHENIE S. Appellee.

BENJAMIN S., Appellant, v. STEPHENIE S. Appellee.

Supreme Court No. S-16007 No. 1665

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ALASKA

January 31, 2018

NOTICE

Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. A party wishing to cite such a decision in a brief or at oral argument should review Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d).

Superior Court No. 3PA-13-01722 CI

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND JUDGMENT^*

Appeal from the Superior Court of the State of Alaska, Third Judicial District, Palmer, Vanessa White, Judge.

Appearances: Benjamin S., Houston, pro se, Appellant. Stephenie S., Colorado Springs, Colorado, pro se, Appellee.

Before: Stowers, Chief Justice, Winfree, Maassen, Bolger, and Carney, Justices.

I. INTRODUCTION

This appeal arises from the divorce of Benjamin S. and Stephenie S.¹ Both parties represented themselves at trial. Benjamin filed for bankruptcy in the midst of the divorce proceedings. The property division trial began after Benjamin received his bankruptcy discharge. The superior court awarded the house and mortgage to Benjamin,allocating to Stephenie all of her marital student loan debt and a 401(k) she had accrued during the marriage. Benjamin challenges many elements of the property division related to: (1) the effect of the bankruptcy on the property division and trial; (2) the valuation and allocation of several items of property; (3) whether the economic effects of divorce were fairly allocated; and (4) the denial of his request for spousal support. He also claims that his disability rights were violated and that the superior court was biased against him. We remand certain aspects of the property division and affirm the superior court's findings in all other respects.

II. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

Benjamin and Stephenie were married in 1996 and had two children. Benjamin was an Air Force officer and became eligible for Social Security Disability benefits after his separation from the military. Near the end of the marriage Stephenie worked as a teacher and earned over $50,000 per year. She also attended graduate school and accumulated significant student debt. Benjamin received about $5,000 per month in veterans' benefits and Social Security Disability income.

The parties separated in June 2013 and Stephenie moved to Colorado with the children. She initially found work as a teacher, earning approximately $32,500 annually, and later began working as an office manager earning approximately $40,000.

Benjamin filed for divorce in July 2013. The parties reached an agreement regarding child custody, which the court approved in November 2013. The parents shared joint legal custody but Benjamin received primary physical custody of the older son and Stephenie received primary physical custody of the younger son.

Trial was scheduled for October 2014, but in September Benjamin filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, delaying the trial. Benjamin filed motions for reimbursement of certain child-related expenses under the parties' parenting plan, which the court held inabeyance until trial. Benjamin received a debt discharge in his bankruptcy in January 2015, and the bankruptcy court continued the process of selling seized property.

The divorce trial to divide property and determine whether spousal support would be awarded was held in June 2015. The court allowed Stephenie to appear by telephone over Benjamin's opposition.

At the start of trial Benjamin questioned whether the court could divide the property when his bankruptcy was not fully resolved. The superior court explained that the automatic stay imposed by his bankruptcy filing had been lifted by the discharge and that there was no legal bar to proceeding. When Benjamin stated he was unsure whether he was ready to proceed with trial, the court offered another continuance. Benjamin decided to proceed despite his reservations, which he said were related more to his unspecified disability than the bankruptcy paperwork.

The court and the parties reviewed the marital assets and debts, including the marital home, other real property, and retirement accounts. The court and both parties worked from Benjamin's property spreadsheets with his list of marital assets and proposed valuation and division. The parties agreed that Benjamin should keep the house, but Benjamin argued that he should be awarded money for necessary upkeep to the home. He said he would have to repair the septic system and provide maintenance for an access road as conditions of the mortgage. Benjamin asked for a portion of a Great West 401(k) earned by Stephenie during the marriage; Stephenie requested the entire 401(k). Benjamin also requested spousal support.

The superior court granted the divorce and divided the marital estate in late June 2015. It found that Benjamin's annual income of about $59,400 was not likely to significantly increase in the future. The court found that Stephenie would likely be able to earn more than her present annual income of $40,000, but was unlikely to earn substantially more than Benjamin's annual income.

The court awarded Benjamin the marital home and mortgage. It did not credit him for post-separation mortgage payments he made while he was living in the home during the separation.² It allocated each party the value of certain assets that they had spent or sold during the separation. Neither of them could identify all of their personal property or establish fair market values, so the court ordered each to keep the items they currently possessed without assigning them a value.³ Benjamin's bankruptcy had discharged many marital debts that therefore were not assigned by the court. Stephenie's marital student loan debt of $57,522 was allocated entirely to her.

The property division left Benjamin net assets worth $41,268 and Stephenie a net debt of $14,911. The superior court recognized that Stephenie would receive half of the proceeds from the sale of assets in Benjamin's bankruptcy. The court allowed her to keep up to $14,911 of those proceeds to make up for her net loss in the property division, but it required her to disgorge half of any excess to Benjamin.

The superior court denied Benjamin's request for spousal support because he had adequate income to meet his post-bankruptcy expenses and Stephenie was "not in a sufficiently strong financial position to pay spousal support." The court also denied Benjamin's two motions for child-related expenses. It noted that those debts might not have been discharged in bankruptcy but concluded that it would be inequitable to require Stephenie to pay them because the unequal property distribution left her such significant debt.

Soon after the trial Benjamin moved to amend the judgment under Alaska Civil Rule 52(b), seeking a number of changes in the property division. The court issued an amended decision, but the only change was to correct misspellings of Stephenie's name.

III. STANDARD OF REVIEW

The equitable division of marital assets involves three steps.⁴ The first step is deciding what property is marital and therefore available for division. "Underlying factual findings as to the parties' intent, actions, and contributions to the marital estate are factual questions" which "are reviewed for clear error," but whether the superior court "applied the correct legal rule . . . is a question of law that we review de novo."⁵ A finding is clearly erroneous when we are "left with a definite and firm conviction that the superior court has made a mistake."⁶ Determining the value of the marital property is a factual determination reviewed for clear error.⁷ Dividing the property equitably between the parties is reviewed for abuse of discretion.⁸

"We review for abuse of discretion a superior court's decision whether to give a credit to a spouse for payments made to maintain marital property, such as thefamily home."⁹

We review for abuse of discretion the decision not to award spousal support.¹⁰ The underlying findings as to the spouses' need for and capacity to pay support are factual¹¹ and are reviewed for clear error.

A superior court's decision whether to permit a party to appear at trial via telephone is reviewed for abuse of discretion.¹²

IV. DISCUSSION

Benjamin raises a long list of issues on appeal. He challenges the court's decision to proceed with the property division in light of his bankruptcy proceedings, a number of aspects of the property division, and its denial of spousal support. He also argues that the court violated unspecified rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and was biased against him.¹³

We first address Benjamin's claims of judicial bias to determine if bias undermined any of the court's decisions. Benjamin claims the judge who presided over his case was biased against him. Most of his claims of bias essentially attribute malice or preference for Stephenie to decisions of the court which did not yield the result he sought. Benjamin's December 2015 motion to recuse the assigned judge for bias was denied, and the denial was affirmed on review by another judge. It is not before us in this appeal. " 'In order to prove a claim of judicial bias,' a party must show that the judge 'formed an opinion of him from extrajudicial sources.' "¹⁴ Bias "should not be inferred merely from adverse rulings."¹⁵ Benjamin has not proposed any extrajudicial source for the superior court's alleged bias or presented any evidence to that effect, and the record does not suggest that the court relied on such sources in forming its opinions. We therefore conclude that his allegations of bias are without merit.¹⁶

A. The Property Division Did Not Violate Benjamin's Bankruptcy Discharge Or Bankruptcy Stay.

Benjamin makes two types of claims related to his bankruptcy: (1) that it was improper for the superior court to divide the marital estate when it did because the bankruptcy stay was still in effect; and (2) that the court's property award was invalid because it assigned him debts discharged in bankruptcy.

1. The property division trial did...