Ward v. Ward
Tennessee Court of Appeals
No. W2001-01078-COA-R3-CV (2002)
- Written by Rich Walter, JD
Facts
For as long as the increasingly strained marriage between James Ward (defendant) and Susan Ward (plaintiff) lasted, James was responsible for managing the couple’s investments. One such investment paid off in a $107,000 windfall. James kept Susan in the dark by handing the windfall money to his extramarital partner, Leigh, who deposited the money in a bank account and managed that account on James’s behalf. Leigh and James used a ledger to track the flow of money into and out of the account. Eventually, James and Leigh broke up, and James and Susan divorced. The existence of James’s secret windfall account came to light during chancery proceedings to divide the Wards’ property. Susan accused James of having dissipated $107,000 in marital assets. By this time, the secret-account ledger had disappeared. However, James proffered written notes summarizing his recollection of the ledger’s contents. The chancellor cited Tennessee Rules of Evidence 1006 and 612 to admit those notes into evidence. Based on other evidence, the chancellor ruled that James’s use of the windfall money was not fraudulent and so did not amount to dissipation. Susan appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. As a threshold matter, the court ruled that the chancellor erroneously applied a fraud-based test for determining dissipation.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Ash, J.)
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