Hallock v. Hallock

1

TIMOTHY J. HALLOCK v. JENNIFER L. HALLOCK

No. AC 46014

Court of Appeals of Connecticut

September 17, 2024

Argued May 14, 2024

Procedural History

Action for the dissolution of a marriage, and for other relief brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Stamford-Norwalk and tried to the court, Mou-kawsher J.; judgment dissolving the marriage and granting certain other relief, from which the defendant appealed to this court. Affirmed.

Alexander J. Cuda, for the appellant (defendant).

Dyan M. Kozaczka, for the appellee (plaintiff).

Seeley, Westbrook and Pellegrino, Js.

OPINION

PELLEGRINO, J.

The defendant, Jennifer L. Hallock, appeals from the judgment of the trial court dissolving her marriage to the plaintiff, Timothy J. Hallock, and entering certain financial orders. On appeal, the defendant claims that the court (1) failed to properly consider her pendente lite motions for alimony and counsel fees, (2) applied an improper legal standard to her claim for alimony and the division of the marital property, (3) applied an improper legal standard to deny her claim for attorney's fees, (4) improperly took judicial notice of facts regarding her employment prospects and earning capacity, and (5) improperly discredited her testimony that the plaintiff's consumption of alcohol caused the marriage to end. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The following facts and procedural history are relevant to our consideration of the issues raised in this appeal. The parties were married on June 17, 2017, in Greenwich and do not have any children together. The plaintiff has two adult children from his prior marriage, and the defendant has three children from her prior marriage, two of whom were adults and one of whom was age sixteen at the time of the dissolution judgment. The plaintiff commenced this dissolution action in March, 2020, alleging that the marriage had broken down irretrievably. During the pendency of the action, the defendant filed pendente lite motions for attorney's fees and alimony, which were not acted on prior to the dissolution trial.

The court, Moukawsher, J., held a trial on October 24, 2022, and, three days later, issued a memorandum of decision. At the outset, the court noted that, during the parties' marriage of approximately three years, their lives did not ''intertwine enough to merit seismic shifts in the parties' finances.'' It then found that the plaintiff had purchased a home for the merged family to live in. The plaintiff's income exceeded $500,000 per year, while the defendant earned ''very little'' and did not contribute to the purchase or upkeep of the marital home.

The court next rejected the defendant's claim that she had an ''automatic claim on at least the assets [the plaintiff] realized during the marriage.'' Specifically, the court stated: ''The real question here is whether [the defendant] contributed to acquiring, preserving, or adding to any of the property in [the plaintiff's] possession. The problem for her is that she didn't. By moving her family in with [the plaintiff, the defendant] improved her financial situation and her children's lifestyle. She did make nonmonetary contributions, but nothing about them can be seen as enabling the financial successes [the plaintiff] enjoyed during the period.''

The court declined to award alimony to the defendant. It also rejected the defendant's assertion that the plaintiff's drinking was the cause of the breakdown of the marriage. It ordered the plaintiff to make a single payment of $40,000 and to transfer $60,000 from his 401 (k) account to the defendant. The parties otherwise retained their respective bank and retirement accounts. The court awarded the plaintiff sole ownership of the marital home. The court further ordered each party to be responsible for their respective attorney's fees. Finally, the court stated that it ''has considered all pending motions in making this decision. It resolves all of them.'' This appeal followed.

On March 14, 2023, the defendant filed a motion for articulation, requesting the court to provide further details regarding (1) the nonmonetary contributions she made, (2) how the court arrived at the amounts of the cash payment and retirement account transfer, (3) the reasoning for its denial of an award of counsel fees, and (4) the specific pending motions it had resolved, as well as the reasoning and outcome of these motions.

On July 11, 2023, the court granted the defendant's motion and issued its articulation. As to the first request, the court explained that the defendant's nonmonetary contributions ''included caring for the children including [the plaintiff's] from a prior marriage and for the household in general. Making meals and shopping. She contributed by supporting [the plaintiff] by participating in social occasions that might benefit his career such as fundraisers and dinners with friends and acquaintances.'' As to the second request, the court stated that the basis for the single cash payment and transfer from the retirement account was its consideration of her contributions to the household, her age, her employment prospects, and her time when she was not employed. ''The court's overall purpose was to provide a way forward for [the defendant] without granting her a windfall based solely on being married to [the plaintiff]. The decision was a matter of the court's judgment of the case overall and what would be needed to carry out its views.'' As to the third request for articulation, the court explained that it ''saw no reason under the applicable statutes to award [the defendant] attorney's fees or to award them outside of the statutes for bad faith.... Having reviewed all the factors in General Statutes § 46b-82, the court believed that [an attorney's] fee award to [the defendant] was not appropriate considering its financial orders, nor would those orders be frustrated by a failure to grant it.'' As to the fourth request, it stated: ''The court resolved pending motions not by independently resolving them but by rolling all issues into the trial. The phrasing used was intended to indicate this. It was not a way of indicating that it had separately adjudicated any particular motions.''

Before considering the specific claims raised by the defendant in this appeal, we recite the relevant legal principles with respect to the financial orders in a dissolution action. ''We review financial awards in dissolution actions under an abuse of discretion standard.... In order to conclude that the trial court abused its discretion, we must find that the court either incorrectly applied the law or could not reasonably conclude as it did.... In determining whether the trial court's broad legal discretion is abused, great weight is due to the action of the trial court and every reasonable presumption should be given in favor of its correctness.... We apply that standard of review because it reflects the sound policy that the trial court has the unique opportunity to view the parties and their testimony, and is therefore in the best position to assess all of the circumstances surrounding a dissolution action, including such factors as the demeanor and the attitude of the parties.'' (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Anderson-Harris v. Harris, 221 Conn.App. 222, 246-47, 301 A.3d 1090 (2023); see also Varoglu v. Sciarrino, 185 Conn.App. 84, 91-92, 196 A.3d 856 (2018).

I

The defendant first claims that the court failed to properly consider her pendente lite motions for alimony and counsel fees. Specifically, she argues that the court did not address these motions in a separate and distinct manner prior to considering the final financial orders contrary to controlling precedent. We disagree.^[1] The following additional facts and procedural history are necessary for the resolution of this claim. On March 6, 2020, the defendant filed a motion for attorney's fees pendente lite in which she asserted that the plaintiff controlled all the marital assets and that she lacked sufficient income and funds to defend this action. On July 2, 2020, the defendant filed a motion for alimony pendente lite,^[2] and this motion was served on the plaintiff six days later. On November 6, 2020, the defendant filed a request for the court to hold a hearing on, inter alia, her pendente lite motions. In this request, the defendant claimed that the plaintiff had removed her access to the marital credit cards and had not provided her with any financial support following the commencement of this action, resulting in an immediate need for such support. The court issued an order granting the defendant's request on December 2, 2020.

On December 22, 2020, the plaintiff filed a motion for a continuance of the next hearing date, which was granted that same day. On February 4, 2021, the plaintiff filed a motion for a second continuance. The defendant objected, arguing that her motion for alimony pendente lite had been pending for more than seven months,^[3]during which time ''the plaintiff has provided no support and the defendant has had no access to marital funds, except for her very limited self-employment income.'' The court denied the plaintiff's second motion for a continuance.

On February 8, 2021, the defendant filed updated proposed orders for alimony pendente lite, in which she requested $11,000 per month, retroactive to July 8, 2020, the date of service of her motion for alimony pendente lite. As to the issue of attorney's fee pendente lite, the defendant requested the court to order the plaintiff to pay $32,714.78. On July 6 2021, the court referred the case to the Stamford Special Masters Pro-gram.^[4] Following further discovery, the court, Mou-kawsher, J., issued a trial management order...