Asare v. Asare

In this marital dissolution appellate case, the appellate court must resolve several issues related to the equitable distribution of the marital estate. On most issues, the appellate court affirmed the trial court. However, the appellate court reversed the trial court on the issue of how much passive appreciation related to an investment account was includable in the marital estate.

In this digest, we will cover only the issue of passive appreciation since it is the only issue that impacts divorce valuation issues. All other matters are mundane because they are fact-driven and do not break any new ground for either legal or valuation issues.

The husband contended the trial court abused its discretion by determining that all of the post-separation appreciation of a mixed marital asset was entirely marital divisible property and did not contain a separate divisible property interest. “Husband specifically argues the trial court erred in finding that the increase of $84,609.00 in Husband’s Vanguard account was marital property.” Unless the court could not determine that the actions of one of the spouses post-separation were attributable to the change in value, then all of the appreciation was divisible property. The evidence presented to the trial court did not support that all appreciation was marital property because the evidence showed passive appreciation of $20,534 on the marital portion of the Vanguard account. The passive appreciation of the husband’s separate part of the Vanguard account should have been classified as his separate property.

The appellate court remanded to the trial court to make this adjustment.