Heyat v. Rahnemaei

127 So.3d 1209

Mohammad HEYAT

v.Anahita RAHNEMAEI.

Anahita Rahnemaei

v.Mohammad Heyat.

2120256.

Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama.

May 17, 2013.

John E. Medaris, Pelham, for appellant/cross-appellee Mohammad Heyat.

Bruce L. Gordon and Jason E. Gilmore of Gordon, Dana, Knight & Gilmore, LLC, Birmingham, for appellee/cross-appellant Anahita Rahnemaei.

PER CURIAM.

This is the second time these parties have appeared before this court. See Heyat v. Rahnemaei, 107 So.3d 216 (Ala.Civ.App.2012). In Heyat, we dismissed an appeal filed by Mohammad Heyat (“the husband”) and a cross-appeal filed by Anahita Rahnemaei (“the wife”) from a judgment divorcing the parties because the trial court's judgment was not final. Heyat, 107 So.3d at 218. The trial court has since rendered a final judgment, and the parties have again sought appellate review.

The husband and the wife were married in 1985 in Iran. At the time, the husband was a student in the United States. He had received his bachelor's degree in civil engineering and planned to seek a master's degree in the same subject matter; he worked as a waiter to support himself. He had traveled back to Iran for the purpose of meeting and marrying an Iranian woman. After a mutual friend of both the husband's family and the wife's family mentioned that the husband was seeking a wife and that the wife was of the appropriate age, the families met. After a few months, the husband asked the wife to marry him; she said that her parents had approved of the idea, so she agreed to marry the husband. After their marriage, it took nearly two years for the husband to secure a visa for the wife to enter the United States. During nearly all of that two-year period, the wife lived with her parents in Iran and the husband lived in Birmingham.

When the wife joined the husband in Birmingham in 1987, she could not speak English. She took classes at churches to learn the language, and, in 1989, she began classes in nuclear-medicine technology at a local junior college. In 1990, while she was a student, the wife gave birth to the parties' first child, a daughter (“the daughter”). The parties first lived in an apartment, but they later purchased a home in Southside (“the Southside house”). The wife completed her bachelor's degree in nuclear-medicine technology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1995.

The wife began working in 1995. She worked full time for some period but then began working only part time, presumably when she gave birth to the parties' second child, a son (“the son”), in 1998. The wife has continued to work since that time, but she has worked only three or four days per week since 2004. At the time of the trial in this matter in July 2011, the wife was earning $5,100 per month working four days per week.

During the first few years that the wife attended college, the husband continued working as a waiter and then began working as a construction superintendent for two separate contractors. Eventually, in 1992, the husband built his first house as a builder. He said that he purchased a lot, secured a construction loan, built the house, and sold it before construction was completed. He testified that he made a $31,000 “profit” on that home. The husband then began doing business as Brookfield Construction Company. The husband built a second house (“the Ridgewood house”) in the same neighborhood as the first. That second house, however, did not sell, and the parties moved into that house in approximately 1995. They then rented the Southside house.

The husband next took on as a project the construction of a custom-built home in a neighborhood called Weatherly. According to the husband, he earned approximately $90,000 on that project, with which he paid off the mortgage on the Ridgewood house. After completing the project in Weatherly, the husband built 13 “spec houses” in a neighborhood called Eagle Point (“the Eagle Point houses”). Those houses sold; however, one homeowner sued the husband over some issues concerning the construction of the house. That lawsuit was settled, but it cost the husband $100,000 in settlement funds and legal fees. The wife provided the husband the $100,000 from money she had saved for the daughter's college education.

After the husband completed the Eagle Point houses, he began constructing the largest home he had ever built in the Greystone neighborhood, located in Shelby County (“the Greystone house”). According to the husband, he used the money he had earned from his other projects to fund the construction of the Greystone house and the construction was not funded by the proceeds of a construction loan. The husband testified that all of his money was tied up in the Greystone house and that, in fact, he ran out of money while completing the house. When the Greystone house did not sell immediately, the wife convinced the husband that they should move from the Ridgewood house to the Greystone house, which they did in December 2006.

The husband then began to remodel the Ridgewood house in order to sell it. He explained that he remodeled the kitchen in the Ridgewood house by tiling the floor, putting in marble countertops, changing cabinet doors, “updating the plumbing,” and replacing the fixtures and sink. According to the husband, the remodeling project cost approximately $55,000 and took more than a year to complete because he did not have the money to complete the project all at one time. The Ridgewood house sold in 2010 for approximately $203,000.

The Greystone house was the last house the husband built. After the parties moved into the Greystone house, the wife began having issues with the husband's lack of remunerative employment. She said that she had urged him to get a job of some kind to provide support for the family but that, instead, the husband became more “fervent” in his religious beliefs and in his attendance at a mosque. She explained that, although both he and she were Muslim, they had not strictly complied with the tenets of their religion. However, the wife testified that, beginning in 2006 or 2007, the husband began to attend mosque much more frequently, sometimes even more than once per day, and that, in doing so, he neglected his responsibilities to his family.

The wife, her friend, Shahin Rogers, and the daughter testified that the husband had expressed anti-American sentiments. As examples, the wife and the daughter testified that the husband had celebrated the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and that he also would say, in his native Iranian language, Farsi, “God is good,” when he heard of the death of American soldiers on the television news. The daughter testified that the son had begun chanting “death to America” around the house, presumably as a result of the husband's influence. The wife testified that she did not want the husband taking the son to the mosque several times a week because, according to her, “there is nothing you can do in the mosque, just sit there and be taught things I don't want him to learn. Things that are part of how to become a terrorist.”

Rogers testified that she had had to ask the husband and others attending a party at her home to stop discussing politics when a discussion regarding the propriety of American involvement in the Middle East became heated; she did not, however, testify that she had overheard anti-American sentiments from the husband at that time. Under further cross-examination by the husband's counsel, Rogers testified that the husband had said that he did not like living in America and that he desired to return to Iran. She also testified that the husband had said at other times that he would like to volunteer for either the North Korean or the Afghan army so that he could fight against America.

The husband denied having ever expressed anti-American sentiments. He also said that he had grieved the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and that he and his family had attended a candlelight vigil for the victims of those attacks. He said that he loved America, although he did admit that he did not support “the war.” He denied that he had ever said that he would like to return to Iran to live.

The wife testified that the husband had financed and supervised the building of two “flats” or apartments in Iran (“the Iranian apartments”). The husband denied having any interest in those apartments, although he admitted that he “thought” that he had “loaned” money to his family to assist with the construction of those apartments. The record contains two sets of documents purporting to show the ownership interests in those apartments. One set of documents indicates that the husband owned both of the apartments, while the other set indicates that, as of the time of trial, neither was owned by the husband.

The husband admitted that he had not sought other employment after his ability to make a living as a builder had ended. He blamed the economy for ending his ability to support his family through his home-building business. He said that he had not advertised his business at any time. When questioned, he admitted that he had had a few jobs doing work like adding a porch or painting, but he said that he had not actively sought such work despite his ability to perform it. Upon further questioning regarding his income while he was building houses, the husband appeared confused regarding the income he reported on his tax returns; he stated that he had followed “the book of the I[nternal] R [evenue] S[ervice]” when computing his income and filling out his tax returns. Notably, the husband's tax returns do not show that he earned significant income from his construction business.

The husband was also questioned about his ability to pay $800 per month in rent for his apartment and meet his other living expenses when he claimed that he did not earn any income. The husband's rental application lists his income as $13,330 per month; the husband stated that he had not written that...