Donnelly v. Donnelly, 2013 UT App 84 Utah Court of Appeals
April 4, 2013
In a temporary order the trial court ordered Father pay child support,
alimony, and the children’s medical expenses. Mother relocated and Father bore the costs of
visiting the children.
At trial, the court entered a decree awarding lower child support and
alimony amounts, but did not make the amounts retroactive. After the trial, Mother moved to divide
retirement. The court divided the
retirement with value at the time of separation. The Court also denied Father’s motion for
credit towards his arrearage for the expenses he incurred to visit the
children. Father appeals the alimony
award and expenses incurred for parent-time.
Mother appeals the valuation date of the retirement.
As to alimony, Father failed to preserve the pretrial order of
alimony. Father made several arguments about
Wife’s diminished
need while living with family and her income from gifts from family. The Court of Appeals found that the trial
court took note of gifts when making the alimony award and the award was not an abuse
of discretion.
As to reimbursement of transportation costs for Father’s
parent-time, the Court of Appeals found no statutory authority for the
requested reimbursement and it was not an abuse of discretion to deny the
reimbursement because Father failed to raise the issue at trial and made no
motion to reopen evidence to address that issue.
As to valuation of the retirement, the Court found that generally
retirements are valued at the time of the decree, however, when significant
time (in this case 5 years) passes between the separation and Decree, it is not an abuse
of discretion to value it at the time of separation.
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