In re Marriafe of Singh

1

In re the Marriage of: Ritesh Singh, petitioner, Appellant, v. Rina Singh, Respondent.

No. A21-1608

Court of Appeals of Minnesota

November 7, 2022

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by Minn. R Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

Becker County District Court File No. 03-FA-20-1370

Ritesh Singh, Detroit Lakes, Minnesota (pro se appellant)

Michael L. Gjesdahl, Gjesdahl Law, P.C., Fargo, North Dakota (for respondent)

Considered and decided by Bratvold, Presiding Judge; Cochran Judge; and Hooten, Judge.

HOOTEN, JUDGE ^[*]

In this appeal from a judgment dissolving the parties' marriage, appellant-father argues that the district court made clearly erroneous findings of fact and abused its discretion by awarding the parties joint physical custody of their children and by making respondent-mother's residence the children's primary residence. Appellant also argues that the district court erred by ruling that certain real property in Nepal is part of the marital estate, clearly erred in valuing the marital home, and abused its discretion in its award of spousal maintenance to respondent. Because the district court's findings of fact underlying its inclusion of the Nepal property in the marital estate are inadequate to allow us to review that ruling, we remand for further findings. But we affirm in all other respects.

FACTS

Appellant-father Ritesh Singh and respondent-mother Rina Singh married in May 2005, in Birgunz, Nepal. At the time of the marriage, appellant had completed his education as a physician in Nepal and respondent was attending dentistry school. In 2008, after appellant was licensed as a physician in the United States, the parties moved to the United States so that appellant could complete his residency there. Because respondent's dentistry college lost its accreditation, she was not able to practice dentistry in the United States.

In September 2009, the parties' first child was born. The family moved to Minnesota in 2011 when appellant accepted a position as a physician in Detroit Lakes. The parties' second child was born in February 2014. Respondent was a stay-at-home parent throughout the marriage.

The parties separated in September 2019, and appellant moved out of the marital home. In June 2020, appellant petitioned for dissolution of the marriage. Some months later, appellant purchased a new home in Detroit Lakes near the marital home.

Throughout the proceeding, the district court issued temporary orders granting respondent sole physical custody of the children subject to appellant's reasonable parenting time. The temporary orders also required that appellant pay respondent $2,000 per month in temporary spousal maintenance and continue to pay the mortgage, utilities, maintenance, and upkeep expenses for the marital home. After the temporary orders were filed, the district court granted appellant's motion to appoint a custody evaluator.

The district court held a three-day court trial in June and July of 2021. The parties, the children's paternal grandmother, and a certified real-estate expert, among others, testified at trial. The custody evaluator also testified, and the district court received the custody evaluator's report into evidence. The district court heard testimony and received evidence from respondent that respondent had enrolled in the dental-hygiene program at a community college in Moorhead, Minnesota, and that pursuit of her studies as a full-time student would require her to move to Moorhead, which is approximately a 50-minute drive from appellant's home in Detroit Lakes. During the trial, respondent asked the court for its decision on physical custody, the children's primary residence, and whether respondent could move to Moorhead with the children in advance of its decision on the balance of the issues to allow time for respondent to secure housing, relocate, and ready the children and herself for the start of the school year.

At the close of trial, the district court ordered the parties to submit simultaneous proposed findings and post-trial briefings to the court 14 days after the close of trial, at which time the matter would be taken under advisement. Six days after the close of trial, the district court filed an order allowing respondent to move to Moorhead with no change to her parenting time, awarding joint physical custody of the children to the parties, ordering the children's primary residence to be with respondent, and establishing a parenting-time schedule. The order stated that joint physical custody is in the children's best interests and that findings of fact, conclusions of law, an order, judgment and decree would follow within the required 90-day timeline, to include the required detailed findings on the best-interests' factors.

In October 2021, the district court entered its findings of fact, conclusions of law, order, judgment and decree (the judgment and decree) reiterating its custody and parenting-time determination, analyzing the best-interests' factors, and disposing of all other issues in the dissolution. The district court awarded spousal maintenance to respondent; found that the parties jointly owned the marital home and appellant's home in Detroit Lakes and established valuations of those homes; found that the parties had an interest in a home in Nepal where the children's paternal grandmother lives and established a valuation for that property; ordered appellant to pay child support; and distributed the marital estate, awarding the marital home to respondent, and both appellant's home and the parties' interest in the home in Nepal to appellant. This appeal follows.

DECISION

I. The findings of fact supporting an award of joint physical custody with the determination that respondent's home would be the children's primary residence are not clearly erroneous.

Appellant first argues that the district court clearly erred by finding facts in support of its award to the parties of joint physical custody of the children and its ruling that respondent's home in Moorhead would be the children's primary residence. Appellant's arguments are not persuasive.

Appellate courts review a district court's decisions regarding custody and parenting determinations for an abuse of discretion. Pikula v. Pikula, 374 N.W.2d 705, 710 (Minn. 1985) (custody); Woolsey v. Woolsey, 975 N.W.2d 502, 506 (Minn. 2022) (modification of custody); Christensen v. Healey, 913 N.W.2d 437, 443 (Minn. 2018) (parenting time). "A district court abuses its discretion by making findings of fact that are unsupported by the evidence, misapplying the law, or delivering a decision that is against logic and the facts on record." Woolsey, 975 N.W.2d at 506 (quoting Bender v. Bernhard, 971 N.W.2d 257, 262 (Minn. 2022)).

Appellant challenges no particular factual findings in the district court's judgment and decree; rather, he alleges that respondent's testimony included "numerous lies" the district court should not have credited. A district court's findings of fact are not set aside unless they are clearly erroneous. Minn. R. Civ. P. 52.01; see Goldman v. Greenwood, 748 N.W.2d 279, 284 (Minn. 2008) (applying rule 52.01 in a family-law appeal). The clear-error standard of review "is a review of the record to confirm that evidence exists to support the decision." In re Civ. Commitment of Kenney, 963 N.W.2d 214, 222 (Minn. 2021). "When the record reasonably supports the findings at issue on appeal, it is immaterial that the record might also provide a reasonable basis for inferences and findings to the contrary." Id. at 223 (quotation omitted). When applying the clear-error standard of review, appellate courts (1) view the evidence in the light most favorable to the findings; (2) do not reweigh the evidence; (3) do not find their own facts; and (4) do not reconcile conflicting evidence. Id. at 221-22. Thus, an appellate court need not engage in extended discussion of the evidence to demonstrate the correctness of the district court's findings; rather, it need only fairly consider all the evidence and determine that the evidence reasonably supports the decision. Id. at 222; see Vangsness v. Vangsness, 607 N.W.2d 468, 472 (Minn.App. 2000) (discussing clear-error standard of review).

In light of Kenney's statements that appellate courts (1) view the evidence in the light most favorable to the findings; (2) do not reweigh the evidence; (3) do not find their own facts; and (4) do not reconcile conflicting evidence, appellant's argument that the district court should not have credited certain aspects of respondent's testimony does not merit relief. See Sefkow v. Sefkow, 427 N.W.2d 203, 210 (Minn. 1988) (noting that appellate courts defer to district court credibility determinations).

Appellant also argues that the district court's parenting determinations are based on its temporary order granting sole physical custody of the children to respondent, which, per appellant, overlooked appellant's willingness and capability as a caregiver and provider, as well as appellant's work schedule, which he asserts is favorable for equal parenting time. Appellant seems to allege that factual findings from the temporary order influenced the final judgment and decree. But appellant does not indicate any specific finding in the temporary order that the district court relied upon, either expressly or implicitly, in its final ruling. Minn. Stat. § 518.131, subd. 9(a) (2020) states that a temporary order "[s]hall not prejudice the rights of the parties . . . to be adjudicated at subsequent hearings in the proceeding." Absent an indication that the district court actually based its final decision on the temporary order, appellant's argument asks that we assume the district court erred by acting in...