Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Councilman v The Judge, part II: Nebraska Court of Appeals resolves continuing disputes between the spouses partially in favor of both, but on balance in Jon Camps favorCamp v. Camp, 14 Neb. App. 473 February 7, 2006. No. A-04-685. On remand from the court of appeals initial decision Camp v Camp (Camp I) the Court of Appeals orders that the wife's (Judge Camp)money judgment for her share of business accounts should advance to the date of the money judgment determination, nearly 2 years after the divorce decree date. This saved Councilman Camp substantial interest and nearly a 1% cut in the judgment interest rate, hardly small change on $82K. However Councilman Camp must apply his annual property division judgment payments to Judge Camp first to accrued interest. Also Jon Camp may not claim the Court should have included certain liabilities against the business accounts before ordering a 39% share to Judge Camp because the first court of appeals ruling covered this issue (law of the case doctrine). Finally even though Judge Camp had to pay income taxes on from IRS Form K-1 distributions, she was not entitled to reimbursement from Jon. The Court figures she gets nearly $3million in property settlements without having to pay taxes on distributions, so call it good.
Laurie received a money judgment for her 39.95-percent interest in the entities, apart from the cash in the entities' checking and savings accounts. Jon was ordered to make yearly installment payments for the judgment, to continue until paid in full, with interest to accrue from April 10, 2002. Under the judgment, Laurie will receive undistributed entity income long after she has ceased paying taxes on entity income, and part of the judgment will include income for which Laurie has already paid taxes. In effect, because the judgment correlates with Laurie's interest in the entities, Laurie was awarded her share of the entities' income for which she paid taxes in 2001 and 2002; she was merely receiving it over an extended period of time. In a dissolution action, the court will consider all pertinent facts in reaching an award that is just and equitable. The ultimate test for determining an appropriate division of marital property is one of reasonableness. The division must, most of all, be reasonable. Halouska v. Halouska, 7 Neb. App. 730, 585 N.W.2d 490 (1998). Because the effect of the judgment was to award Laurie the entity income for which she paid taxes in 2001 and 2002, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying her request for a money judgment.
For a summary of the first Camp appeal, Camp I, see Valuation Information.com: essentially, the court of appeals in the first ruling required actual business results based on income capitalization of the business in valuing the company in the divorce. The husband did not get a discount for buying out the wife's minority share. And he could not claim an additional share for prospective tax consequences, which the court found he failed to prove were very definite or certain

No comments: