Inadequate Record Dooms Appeal of $4,000 Fee Award Against Husband.
In Marriage of Katz, Case No. G040685 (4th Dist., Div. 3 May 5, 2009) (unpublished), the husband was ordered to pay $4,000 of his wife’s attorney’s fees under Family Code sections 2030/2032, even though wife sought fees of $5,562 for husband’s claimed failure to reimburse the children’s medical expenses. Although husband alleged that he was unemployed and living on dwindling savings, the Fourth District, Division 3 (in a 3-0 opinion authored by Acting Presiding Justice O’Leary) affirmed because he provided no legal analysis as to why the family law judge’s ruling was erroneous. (See Reyes of Kosha, 65 Cal.App.4th 451, 466 n. 6 (1998) [appellate court does not have to figure out why a ruling is erroneous based on only appellant’s assertion of error].)
Existence of 401-K Savings Justified $21,000 Fee Award Against Husband.
The start of this opinion shows the financial havoc, not to mention emotional trauma, resulting from many dissolution proceedings. “This case is sad proof that divorce typically leaves both parties worse off financially.”
Although winning a reversal of a support award against him, husband did not obtain an overturn of a $21,000 “needs”-based fee award in favor of his wife under either section 2030 or 271.
Marriage of Griffin, Case No. E045618 (4th Dist., Div. 2 May 5, 2009) (unpublished) found that husband did have a 401(k) plan, with no evidence that he could not borrow additional sums to make fee payments to his wife. The appellate court even affirmed the extended payment schedule ordered by the trial court on this issue.