Marital property division; MCL 552.19; Sparks v Sparks; Dissipation of marital assets; MCL 552.401; Sands v Sands; Attorney & expert fee shifting; MCR 3.206(D); Loutts v Loutts

The court held that the trial court’s property division and fee rulings in this contentious divorce were fair and equitable, so the judgment of divorce was affirmed. The parties’ marriage involved numerous businesses, multimillion-dollar accounts receivable, large personal guarantees, and allegations of dissipation on paramours, gold bars, and status-quo violations. After a bench trial, the trial court awarded defendant all business interests and related personal guarantees, ordered the parties to split collections on existing accounts receivable, treated certain expenditures as dissipation, and denied plaintiff attorney fees while granting her expert witness fees up to a capped amount. On appeal, the court held that awarding defendant the businesses and all personal guarantees but splitting receivables outstanding at judgment appropriately recognized that “the vast majority of the estate’s assets and debts were dependent on speculative, future events” and allowed plaintiff to share in profits generated during the marriage while defendant retained full benefit and risk going forward. The court also found no error in the limited dissipation findings where plaintiff failed to prove many challenged withdrawals, alleged paramour spending, and gold-bar claims, noting that she bore the burden of proof and that “trial courts are not the research assistants of litigants.” It further held that the trial court properly treated funds in a joint account with plaintiff’s brother as an advance to plaintiff in light of her own testimony about removing her name to keep defendant from the money and her failure to present corroborating evidence. Finally, the court upheld the denial of attorney fees because plaintiff did not show defendant could pay more than $350,000 and because her own conduct and voluntary underemployment “inflated her financial need for fees,” while the award of capped expert fees was justified since plaintiff’s expert’s valuation work “formed a cornerstone of the trial discussion” and the court required a line-by-line allocation to exclude arbitration-related charges.