Woosnam v. Woosnam

Patricia Woosnam (plaintiff) and Kenneth Ray Woosnam (defendant) were married in 1970 and separated in 1978. For the first six years of the Woosnam's marriage, the couple resided in a home Patricia owned. The home had been purchased for $12,500 and had an existing mortgage indebtedness of $9,466.23. The home was sold for $19,175. After payment of the mortgage, Patricia used the remaining non-marital funds from the sale of the first home to purchase the couple's second home for $23,000. The Woosnams remained at the second home until their separation. When determining the value of the marital and separate property, the chancellor determined that the first home had a fair market value of $13,300 on the date of the Woosnam's marriage, and the second home had a fair market value of $37,500 upon the Woosnam's separation. Kentucky is an equitable-distribution state, meaning the court works to create a fair, but not necessarily equal, division of marital property in a divorce proceeding. The chancellor determined that Patricia had a separate interest in the first property totaling $3,833.77, which equaled the fair market value of $13,300 minus the mortgage indebtedness of $9,466.23. The chancellor then determined that this sum equaled 28.8 percent of the property value and awarded Patricia that percentage of the sale price, which totaled $5,587.20. Patricia appealed, alleging that the chancellor did not restore the proper amount of separate property to her.