Prior Award of $160,000 in Fees and Transfer of Valuable Property to Wife Sufficed.
When you are in family law court, make sure you consider all the equities before seeking needs-based fees or Family Code section 271 sanctions.
In Marriage of Davis, Case No. B243382 (2d Dist., Div. 6 July 17, 2014) (unpublished), a family law judge refused to award additional attorney’s fees to be paid by ex-husband beyond a prior $160,000 needs-based award to wife and also rejected assessing Family Code section 271 sanctions against ex-husband. (Fee awards under Family Code sections 2030/2032 and sanctions under section 271 have been discussed many times before in this blog and a discussion of the statutes can be found for review under our family law categories on the left side of our “Home” page.)
Husband, who was about 28 years older than wife, and wife had been married only 20 months and had no children, with husband ordered to pay $10,000/month in temporary spousal support and with husband voluntarily transferring a $325,000 Kentucky property to wife for purposes of avoiding a contempt charge relating to not paying $128,500 in delinquent spousal support/attorney’s fees. (Previously, the lower court had awarded $160,000 out of a requested $250,000 in needs-based fees and costs to ex-wife.) However, at the conclusion of a trial, the family law judge refused to award any additional needs-based fees or any section 271 sanctions against ex-husband.
The 2/6 DCA, in a 3-0 opinion authored by Justice Yegan, affirmed the fee and sanctions determinations.
Basically, the deferential abuse of discretion review standard could not be hurdled by appealing ex-wife. One of the overarching problems was that the trial judge did not believe ex-wife had viable claims based on speculative theories that he transferred properties away and had offshore accounts—theories not panning out during trial. The lack of justification for a trial alone showed the failure to award additional fees was not erroneous in nature. With respect to section 271 sanctions, wife’s request for $3.6 million was found to be outlandish in light of her failure to make a case and the lower court’s prior $160,000 fees order.
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