Dissipation of Assets
MISSOURI: Fitzwater v. Fitzwater, 151 S.W.3d 135 (Mo. Ct. App. 2004).
Marital funds were not dissipated when spent to pay personal property taxes on marital property, to maintain marital property, and to pay marital debts.
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FLORIDA: Plichta v. Plichta, 899 So. 2d 1283 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2005).
The trial court erred by holding that the funds in two IRAs were dissipated by the husband, where they were spent for legitimate purposes while the case was pending. The trial court also erred by awarding to the husband the cash surrender value of certain life insurance policies, where the husband was required to maintain those policies in force to secure his child and spousal support obligations.
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MINNESOTA: Sirek v. Sirek, 693 N.W.2d 896 (Minn. Ct. App. 2005)
The parties fell into arrears on a contract to purchase land from the husband's mother, who served on the parties a notice to cancel the contract. The husband did not tell the wife of the notice or bring the payments up to date, and the mother canceled the contract. But the wife prevailed in a nondomestic action to set the cancellation aside, on grounds that the notice of cancellation was deficient. In a later divorce action, the trial court erred by holding that the husband had dissipated the value of the parties' equity in the land. The cancellation was set aside, so that the husband's action did not actually remove the parties' equity from the marital estate.
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FLORIDA: Karimi v. Karimi, 867 So. 2d 471 (Fla. 5th Dist. Ct. App. 2004).
Dissipation of marital property did not occur when the husband, an unemployed stay-at-home father, used marital funds to pay living expenses for himself and his son after the filing of the action.
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MASSACHUSETTS: Kittredge v. Kittredge, 441 Mass. 28, 803 N.E.2d 306 (2004).
The trial court properly treated as dissipation only $40,000 of the husband's $400,000 in gambling losses over the course of a period of at least ten years. Despite the gambling losses, the husband's overall economic contribution to the marriage was strongly positive, and there was no evidence that he gambled for the purpose of harming the wife. With regard to roughly $40,000 in losses incurred during the last year of the marriage, however, the trial court properly found dissipation, as these losses occurred when the husband knew a divorce was coming.
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MISSOURI: Petties v. Petties, 129 S.W.3d 901 (Mo. Ct. App. 2004).
Marital funds invested in marital rental properties and used to pay marital living expenses before the divorce were not dissipated and should not have been treated as distinct marital assets. A lump-sum workers' compensation settlement, paid out after entry of the divorce decree for an injury sustained during the marriage, was presumed to be marital property. The presumption could be rebutted by proof that a portion of the settlement was compensation for lost postmarital wages, but no such proof was presented on the facts. The trial court erred by awarding to the husband certain debts incurred to benefit property awarded to the wife, with the result that the husband received 99% of the overall marital debt.
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ILLINOIS: In re Marriage of Miller, 342 Ill. App. 3d 988, 796 N.E.2d 135 (2003).
The husband did not dissipate marital property by using it to pay for taxes, repairs, and improvements on other marital property. He did not dissipate marital property stock by selling it, as the proceeds were marital property, and the stock would in fact have lost value if it had not been sold. The husband did not dissipate marital property by closing his medical practice, where maintaining the practice made it difficult for the husband to care for the three sons in his custody, the stress of divorce was interfering with patient care, and the husband had an alternate source of income sufficient to meet his obligations.
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