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Supreme Court6/15/2000
Calendar Date: May 2, 2000
Appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court (Hughes, J.) granting defendant a divorce and ordering equitable distribution of the parties' marital property, entered April 1, 1999 in Schoharie County, upon a decision of the court.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
The parties were married on December 5, 1987 and there are no children of this union. Prior to this marriage, which was the second for both parties, plaintiff was employed as a licensed practical nurse and defendant worked as a manager at Van Dyke Motors, his parents' automobile dealership. After suffering a back injury before her marriage to defendant, plaintiff obtained a real estate license and earned up to $30,000 per year. When the real estate market suffered a setback, she took a sales position at Van Dyke Motors, earning up to $27,000 per year during the course of the marriage.
In his position as parts manager at Van Dyke Motors, defendant's income was approximately $20,000 per year. After a brief stint as a self-employed cabinetmaker, defendant became general manager of the dealership when his father died in 1990, which increased his income to $27,000 per year. Thereafter, defendant and his two siblings each inherited a one-third interest in Van Dyke Enterprises, a corporation valued at $541,000 which owned vacant land and leased premises to Van Dyke Motors, a Grand Union grocery store and a Niagara Mohawk Service Center. In December 1994, Van Dyke Enterprises entered into an agreement to purchase the shares inherited by defendant's siblings at a cost of $400,000, to be paid from corporate rental income in monthly installments over a 10-year period. Just prior to the parties' first separation in 1995, defendant's mother transferred her interest in the dealership to defendant and, as dealer principal, defendant's annual salary rose to between $37,000 and $44,000.
Plaintiff temporarily vacated the marital residence in early 1995 and, subsequent to a brief reconciliation, she departed permanently in July 1996, removing a substantial proportion of the household furnishings. Plaintiff then sued for divorce on the ground of cruel and inhuman treatment. After extensive pretrial discovery and other proceedings, some of which were conducted by plaintiff pro se after she had discharged a prior attorney, the matter was scheduled for trial. Having retained her present attorneys, plaintiff withdrew her complaint and defendant amended his answer to add a counterclaim for divorce based on cruel and inhuman treatment. After a trial on defendant's counterclaim, Supreme Court granted defendant a judgment for divorce and directed equitable distribution of the marital assets. Plaintiff now appeals.
Plaintiff initially seeks reversal of the judgment for divorce, asserting that defendant failed to establish sufficient evidence in support of his June 1998 counterclaim for divorce. We disagree. Supreme Court, inter alia, credited defendant's testimony concerning specific incidents of violence that occurred in 1996 during which plaintiff hit defendant with a frying pan causing injury, threw various household items at him and, on one occasion, wrestled him to the ground in an attempt to remove an audio tape from his pocket. As Supreme Court is to be accorded broad discretion as the trier of fact, we find no reason to set aside its determination that defendant met his burden in demonstrating that his physical and mental well-being was threatened so as to render it unsafe or improper to continue to cohabit with plaintiff, thereby entitling defendant to the dissolution of the marriage (see, Stricos v. Stricos, 263 AD2d 659, 661; Bailey v. Bailey, 256 AD2d 1030; Isr
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