Taft v. Taft

• Decision Date: 30 June 2016
• Docket Number: Opinion No. 20140690–CA
• Citation: 379 P.3d 890,2016 UT App 135
• Parties: Teresa Taft, Appellant, v. Milton Lee Taft Jr., Geraldine Poulson Taft,and Milton Lee Taft III, Appellees.
• Court: Utah Court of Appeals

379 P.3d 890
2016 UT App 135

Teresa Taft, Appellant,
v.
Milton Lee Taft Jr., Geraldine Poulson Taft,¹ and Milton Lee Taft III, Appellees.

Opinion No. 20140690–CA

Court of Appeals of Utah.

Filed June 30, 2016
Rehearing Denied August 4, 2016

Leslie W. Slaugh, Provo, Attorney for Appellant.

Michael R. Labrum, Richfield, Attorney for Appellees.

Judge Stephen L. Roth authored this Opinion, in which Judges J. Frederic Voros Jr. and Michele M. Christiansen concurred.

ROTH, Judge:

¶ 1 In this consolidated appeal, Teresa Taft (Wife) appeals from a supplemental decree of divorce and judgment between herself and Milton Lee Taft III (Husband), entered on

379 P.3d 895

September 16, 2014. We affirm in part and reverse in part and remand.

BACKGROUND

¶ 2 Husband and Wife married in June 1987, and the marriage ended with the entry of a bifurcated decree of divorce in December 2009. During twenty-two years of marriage, the parties built two businesses and acquired certain real property. In particular, Husband and Wife purchased property to build and operate Taft Travel Plaza (the Travel Plaza) in 1991. Initially the Travel Plaza consisted of a convenience store and a gas station, but it was later expanded to include a fast food restaurant and a five-unit strip mall of commercial rentals. In 2006, the couple separated. During the separation and prior to the divorce, Husband and his parents—Milton Lee Taft Jr. and Geraldine Poulson Taft—began Milton's South, Inc. (Milton's South), a business consisting of “an apartment, a business space, two separate large buildings of storage units, a 2–bay car wash, and a credit card fueling station.” At the time of the divorce, Husband owned 33.4% of the stock in Milton's South, though by the time of trial, Husband had acquired full ownership of the corporation.

¶ 3 During the marriage, Husband primarily ran the businesses and Wife primarily took care of their four children, occasionally assisting with various tasks at the Travel Plaza as needed. The business assets and the real property acquired during the marriage were titled solely in Husband's name, though the parties understood that Wife had an interest in the property. Although the businesses were incorporated, Husband has consistently treated them as sole proprietorships, paying both business and personal expenses from the business accounts. In 2011, Wife decided to enroll in and attend graduate school at the University of Utah. As part of her graduate studies, Wife received a scholarship stipend, which must be annually renewed, that provided her with monthly income. In 2014, her stipend was $1,909 per month.

¶ 4 The 2009 bifurcated decree of divorce reserved child custody and support, alimony, and property issues for later resolution. At the time of the bifurcated decree, the parties “stipulated to temporary orders” that “required [Husband] to pay $3,500 per month to [Wife] for family support,” but no agreement was reached regarding the parties' respective incomes. The temporary orders “reserved the right” for the parties to “retroactively adjust the support payment” once both parties' incomes became “fully established.” However, the parties' incomes were not determined until trial.

¶ 5 In April 2011, Husband filed a motion for modification of the temporary support orders because he believed that he was “no longer able to pay the amount ordered” for family support. Husband identified the source of his financial difficulties as a faulty credit card reader at the Travel Plaza gas pumps, which resulted in “highly unusual business losses” for Husband during 2009 to 2010.² During this period of financial difficulty, Husband sold a twenty-acre parcel of land in Wayne County, Utah, on which he had built a golf course (the Sunglow Property). He had originally purchased the land from his parents in October 2001 for $50,000. In 2011, however, in order to “pay down loans” and help secure “additional SBA business financing,” Husband sold the parcel back to his father for $50,000.³ After the sale, Husband

379 P.3d 896

continued to use the Sunglow Property in the same manner as he had before.

¶ 6 In January 2012, Wife filed a motion for an order to show cause, asking the trial court to hold Husband “in immediate contempt” and to award Wife delinquent support along with her attorney fees. The court issued an order to show cause in January 2012, and the case was scheduled for a hearing on that issue as well as Husband's motion for modification of temporary orders at the end of that month. The issues were not resolved at that hearing, and they were not raised again until trial.

¶ 7 The case went to trial in December 2013, and the court issued a memorandum decision in June 2014 wherein it ruled on child custody; child support; alimony; division of real and personal property, including the alleged fraudulent transfer of the Sunglow Property; the temporary support order; allocation of the parties' debts; and attorney fees. The court directed Husband's counsel “to draft the final documents necessary to implement the Court's decision.” Wife filed a motion for reconsideration (the Motion to Reconsider) and objections to Husband's proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law (the Objections). On September 16, 2014, the trial court denied the Motion to Reconsider, overruled the Objections, and filed its supplemental findings of fact and conclusions of law and supplemental decree of divorce and judgment. Wife appeals from the supplemental order as well as from the trial court's denial of the Motion to Reconsider and its decision to overrule the Objections.

ISSUES

¶ 8 Wife first argues that the trial court erred in determining the amount of Husband's alimony obligation. In particular, she contends that the court erroneously calculated Husband's income and that the court's alimony findings generally do not support the award.

¶ 9 Second, Wife challenges several aspects of the trial court's property division. She asserts that the evidence does not support several of the trial court's findings and that some of the findings were inadequate. She also contends that the trial court abused its discretion in establishing the terms for Husband's payment of Wife's property settlement.

¶ 10 Third, Wife argues that the trial court erred in concluding that the Sunglow Property was not fraudulently conveyed by Husband to his father under the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act. See Utah Code Ann. §§ 25–6–1 to –16 (LexisNexis 2013).

¶ 11 Fourth, Wife argues that the trial court abused its discretion by failing to order Husband to pay her the support that remained unpaid under the temporary support order.

¶ 12 Fifth, Wife argues that the trial court abused its discretion by denying the Motion to Reconsider. She also asserts that the trial court abused its discretion by summarily rejecting the Objections without considering their merits.

¶ 13 Finally, Wife challenges the trial court's refusal to award her attorney fees.

ANALYSIS

I. Alimony

¶ 14 Wife argues that the trial court erred in determining the amount of Husband's alimony obligation. We will uphold a trial court's alimony determination on appeal “unless a clear and prejudicial abuse of discretion is demonstrated.” Breinholt v. Breinholt , 905 P.2d 877, 879 (Utah Ct. App. 1995) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). An alimony award must be based on the court's consideration of “a number of factors when determining the amount and duration of alimony.” Roberts v. Roberts , 2014 UT App 211, ¶ 12, 335 P.3d 378. The principal factors are “(i) the financial condition and needs of the recipient spouse; (ii) the recipient's earning capacity or ability to produce income; [and] (iii) the ability of the payor spouse to provide support.” Utah Code Ann. § 30–3–5(8)(a) (LexisNexis 2013); see also Jones v. Jones , 700 P.2d 1072, 1075 (Utah 1985). The trial court must also “make adequate findings on all material issues of alimony to reveal the reasoning followed in making the award.” Bolliger v. Bolliger , 2000 UT App 47, ¶ 19, 997 P.2d 903 (citation and

379 P.3d 897

internal quotation marks omitted). “Findings are adequate only if they are sufficiently detailed and include enough subsidiary facts to disclose the steps by which the ultimate conclusion on each factual issue was reached.” Rayner v. Rayner , 2013 UT App 269, ¶ 11, 316 P.3d 455 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

¶ 15 In addition, a trial court must take into account the goals of a proper alimony award, which are “(1) to get the parties as close as possible to the same standard of living that existed during the marriage; (2) to equalize the standards of living of each party; and (3) to prevent the recipient spouse from becoming a public charge.” Dobson v. Dobson , 2012 UT App 373, ¶ 20, 294 P.3d 591 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In cases where the parties' combined resources are insufficient to support both parties at the economic level they enjoyed during marriage, equalization of “the parties' respective standards of living” is appropriate. Utah Code Ann. § 30–3–5(8)(f). “Equalization of income ... is a trial court's remedy for those situations in which one party...