Taylor v. Taylor
| Decision Date | 06 June 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. M1999-02398-COA-R3-CV.,M1999-02398-COA-R3-CV. |
| Parties | LOLA ANN NEUGEBAUER TAYLOR v. JAMES RUSSELL TAYLOR. |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Rutherford County Nos. 40639 & 40939 Royce Taylor, Judge
Judgment of the Circuit Court Modified in Part and Affirmed in Part.
Jim Wiseman, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for the appellant, James Russell Taylor.
Charles Patrick Flynn, Brentwood, Tennessee, for the appellee, Lola Ann Neugebauer Taylor.
WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which BEN H. CANTRELL, P.J., M.S., and WILLIAM B. CAIN, J., joined.
This appeal arises from the dissolution of a four-year marriage. The wife sought a divorce in the Circuit Court for Rutherford County because of the husband's chronic drunkenness, non-support, and threats of violence. Following a bench trial, the court granted the wife a divorce on the ground of inappropriate marital conduct. The trial court also divided the martial estate, gave the wife custody of the parties' four-year-old daughter, and directed the husband to pay child support. On this appeal, the husband asserts that the trial court erred in its classification and division of the marital property, that the trial court awarded an excessive amount of child support, and that the trial court erred by denying his request to place a portion of his child support in an educational trust fund. For her part, the wife requests an additional award to defray her legal expenses for this appeal. We conclude that the trial court (1) correctly classified and divided the marital estate, (2) properly sequestered a portion of the husband's assets to assure the timely and regular payment of his child support, and (3) properly declined to establish an educational trust fund for the child. We also conclude that the trial court erred by failing to direct the trial court clerk to return the remainder of the sequestered funds to the husband when his child support obligation ceased. In addition, we decline to award the wife her legal expenses for this appeal or to find that this appeal was frivolous.
Lola Ann Neugebauer met James Russell Taylor in 1993 when he responded to her call for a taxi. Ms. Neugebauer was a thirty-year-old, recently transplanted Texan who had never been married. Mr. Taylor was forty-two years old and had been married once. They began dating immediately and soon thereafter purchased a house in Christiana together. They were married on June 11, 1994, and their only child was born on May 9, 1995.
Ms. Taylor did not bring any substantial assets to the marriage. However, even though he was driving a taxi, Mr. Taylor had inherited several assets, including an antique collection valued at approximately $50,000 and a twelve-acre tract of commercially valuable real property on the Shelbyville Highway in Murfreesboro. At Mr. Taylor's insistence, the parties signed an antenuptial agreement to ensure that the real property remained with Mr. Taylor's family.1
Ms. Taylor had completed one year of community college in Texas before she moved to Tennessee. She obtained a job preparing title policies for a law firm in Murfreesboro, and by 1996, she had become the general manager for a title agency in Rutherford County. By 1998, she earned more than $45,000 per year. Mr. Taylor earned approximately $300 per week driving a taxi until he lost his driver's license. Ms. Taylor knew that Mr. Taylor used "a little bit of pot" when they were married but did not believe that he had a substance abuse problem. All this changed following the birth of the parties' daughter in May 1995.
Mr. Taylor quit his job as a taxi driver approximately one month after the birth of the parties' daughter because he had lost his driver's license. He worked only sporadically during the remaining years of the marriage and used the money he earned to buy himself alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. He ceased contributing to the household expenses and spent very little time at home — preferring to spend his time in local bars instead. He often came home in the middle of the night and awakened Ms. Taylor and their daughter by yelling at them in a drunken stupor.
During 1996, the parties engaged in three transactions that are significant to the issues raised on this appeal. On January 25, 1996, they executed a deed conveying the Christiana property to themselves as tenants by the entirety with a right of survivorship. On the same day, Mr. Taylor executed a quitclaim deed conveying the twelve-acre tract on the Shelbyville Highway to himself and Ms. Taylor as tenants by the entirety. On September 16, 1997, the parties sold 7.56 acres of the property on the Shelbyville Highway for $131,999.03. They used approximately $30,000 of the proceeds to pay marital debts, especially credit card bills, and they put the remaining funds in a joint savings account. They also listed the remaining four acres of the Shelbyville Highway property for sale at an asking price of $600,000.
The parties' home life continued to decline. In September 1998, Ms. Taylor filed a petition for a protective order in the Circuit Court for Rutherford County describing three years of domestic violence in which Mr. Taylor customarily threatened and shoved her. She also alleged that on September 1, 1998, Mr. Taylor threatened to kill her in the presence of their daughter. The trial court issued an ex parte order of protection on September 8, 1998, and when Mr. Taylor failed to respond, entered an order of default awarding temporary custody of the parties' daughter to Ms. Taylor. The order restrained Mr. Taylor from contact with Ms. Taylor except as needed for visitation with their child and directed Mr. Taylor to pay $50.40 per week as child support to the clerk of the court.
Ms. Taylor filed suit for divorce on November 23, 1998 after the parties' daughter found drug paraphernalia in their home. She also filed a petition seeking to hold Mr. Taylor in contempt for failing to pay the child support required by the order of protection. Because Mr. Taylor had no known address at the time, the sheriff's office served him with the contempt papers at a bar named Carney's. The trial court thereafter consolidated the divorce and contempt cases for trial.
At trial, the parties stipulated the grounds for divorce but contested the division of their property. The trial court, sitting without a jury, granted Ms. Taylor a divorce on the ground of inappropriate marital conduct. In its division of the marital estate, the trial court classified both the Christiana property and the Shelbyville Highway property as marital property. The trial court directed that the Shelbyville Highway property be sold and that each party receive one-half of the net proceeds from the sale.
The trial court also approved Ms. Taylor's proposed parenting plan that gave her sole custody of the parties' daughter and that obligated Mr. Taylor to pay $90 per week in child support. In light of Mr. Taylor's track record for paying child support, the court directed 21% of his share of the capital gains from the sale of the Shelbyville Road property be paid to Ms. Taylor as child support. The trial court also directed that $50,000 of Mr. Taylor's share of the proceeds from the sale of the Shelbyville Road property be deposited with the trial court clerk for the benefit of the parties' child and authorized Ms. Taylor to withdraw $90 per week as child support. The trial court finally directed that any funds being held by the trial court clerk should be paid over to the child on her eighteenth birthday. Mr. Taylor has appealed.
Mr. Taylor takes issue with the trial court's decision to classify the Christiana property and the Shelbyville Road property as marital property and the manner in which the court divided the parties' marital estate. Specifically, he asserts that the court's classification decision runs afoul of the prenuptial agreement and that the court awarded Ms. Taylor an inequitably large share of the marital estate. We have determined that the manner in which the trial court classified and divided the parties' property was legally correct and equitable.
Dividing a marital estate necessarily begins with the classification of the parties' property as either separate or marital property. Miller v. Miller, 81 S.W.3d 771, 775 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2001); Anderton v. Anderton, 988 S.W.2d 675, 679 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1998). Tennessee is a "dual property" state. Smith v. Smith, 93 S.W.3d 871, 875-76 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2002). Accordingly, property cannot be included in the marital estate unless it fits within the definition of "marital property" in Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-4-121(b)(1)(A) (Supp. 2002). By the same token, "separate property," as defined in Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-4-121(b)(2), should not be included in the marital estate.2 Because property classification issues are questions of fact, Mitts v. Mitts, 39 S.W.3d 142, 144-45 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2000); Brown v. Brown, 913 S.W.2d 163, 167 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1994), appellate courts will review a trial court's classification decisions using the familiar standard of review in Tenn. R. App. P. 13(d).
Once a trial court has classified the property as either marital or separate, it should place a reasonable value on each piece of property subject to division. Edmisten v. Edmisten, No. M2001- 00081-COA-R3-CV, 2003 WL 21077990, at *11 ; Robertson v. Robertson, No. M1999-02103-COA-R3-CV, 2001 WL 459100, at *3 (No Tenn. R. App. P. 11 application filed). The parties themselves must come forward with competent valuation evidence. Kinard v. Kinard, 986 S.W.2d at 231; Wallace v. Wallace, 733 S.W.2d 102, 107 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1987). When valuation evidence is conflicting, the court may place a value on the property that is within the range of the values...
To continue reading
Request your trial