NCA scolds Judge Murphy for rushing through divorce trial

Gohl v. Gohl, 13 Neb. App. 685 July 5, 2005. No. A-03-1102. Appeal from Red Willow County John P. Murphy, Judge In this divorce case involving very complex details regarding the parties' marital assets and disputed valuations, the Court entered a dissolution decree from which both parties appealed. The Court of Appeals comments about the conduct of trial judge John Murphy are most telling:

"We must note that this surprising lack of detail, given the complexity of the case, infects the entire record—an apparent result of time limitations imposed on trial counsel by the court. While the record reveals that the trial started at 8:30 a.m. on June 18, 2003, it also shows that when Jerry’s counsel began his evidentiary presentation and inquired of the court about how much time he had, the court informed him, “At 12:10 I walk out the door.” In response to our questions during oral argument on appeal, counsel for both parties indicated that they had been under a strict time limit of 2 hours per side, and Jerry’s counsel asserted that there was no time for Jerry to testify—thus explaining the curious absence of any testimony from him, though neither party assigns error to how the trial was conducted" The Appeals court further found the judge improperly accepted a marital assets valuation that did not account for a patent infringement judgment against Walmart for nearly $500K, because it was too old. Further the Appeals court found insufficient detail to review other property valuation matters: " the lack of detail materially impacts our ability to conduct effective appellate review." "We find ourselves in the position of not having a sufficient record to decide the case on our own"Even though neither party requested on the record more time to present his case, nor does the court explain on the record why it set such strict time limits, nonetheless, we are dutybound to ensure a fair and reasonable property division, and we have no confidence after an exhaustive review of this record that such a division occurred in the trial court or that we could achieve such on this record. The appeals court must ensure that the parties have a fair hearing and a reasoned decision, which in our opinion did not occur. Arbitrary time limits can easily become the enemy of justice in our adversarial system. See Robison v. Madsen, 246 Neb. 22, 516 N.W.2d 594 (1994)