Originally published by mkhtx.
This morning the Fourteenth Court of Appeals released its memorandum opinion affirming a divorce decree in Walzel v. Walzel, No. 14-16-00637-CV, over the husband’s challenge of the trial court’s finding of wasted community assets in the amount of approximately $800,000.
Husband and wife married in 1968. W filed for divorce in June 2014. The property division was tried to the bench; H was pro se at trial.
At the time the divorce was filed, the parties were retired. H had left the marital home in October 2013. W was disabled and could not leave the home or even take care of herself. After leaving, H lived with a girlfriend at a different residence between October 2014 and August 2015.
At trial, H testified that the parties bought a vacant lot in a planned development in Belize in 2010. He also admitted to withdrawals from his retirement account of approximately $703,000.00. He further admitted to withdrawals from non-retirement financial accounts. When asked where the money went, he testified that the money was “used for our pleasure, bills. Everything we did was for our estate. Everything we ever did was for us to live a better life and that’s where it all went.” W’s expert, a CPA hired to attempt to trace the approximately $800,000 in total withdrawals, testified that H did not provide her with or refused to provide her with sufficient documents. H did not call a financial expert to testify or any witnesses regarding the withdrawals.
After trial, the trial court signed a decree which divided the marital estate (awarding H the Belize property) and found H had wasted community assets in the amount of approximately $800,000 and charged H with the wasted funds “as part of the marital property division as if the estate was reconstituted to include the funds that were wasted.” H appealed.
In his sole issue, H argued the trial court abused its discretion because the evidence was legally insufficient. Specifically, H argued that W’s expert CPA based her analysis on assumptions not supported by evidence. The Court of Appeals found that it did not need to review these assumptions because they had no impact on the CPA’s ultimate opinion that she could not account for the unexplained withdrawals. Further, H himself admitted in his testimony that he withdrew the funds and did not adequately explain what he did with them. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court.
Curated by Texas Bar Today. Follow us on Twitter @texasbartoday.
from Texas Bar Today http://ift.tt/2BFH3JV
via Abogado Aly Website
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