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Sanchez v. Sanchez6/19/2003
UNPUBLISHED
Defendant appeals as of right a judgment of divorce , asserting that the trial court erred in its property division and improperly denied her request for alimony and her request for attorney fees. We affirm.
The parties were married in 1986. In 1991, plaintiff was involved in an automobile collision that resulted in his total and permanent disability. Plaintiff received no-fault benefits including lost wages for three years plus an additional first-party no-fault settlement in the amount of $210,000 in December 1994. In 1995, plaintiff received a third-party settlement in the net amount of $1.2 million for his claims of pain and suffering and lost wages, as well as defendant's claim for loss of consortium. Approximately $430,000 was used to purchase furniture, vehicles, and real estate , to pay off the mortgage on the family home, and to purchase investments at Solomon Smith Barney. The balance of the settlement was used to purchase an annuity to provide future income to plaintiff.
At the time of trial, plaintiff was thirty-seven years of age and defendant was forty years of age. It appears from the materials submitted by the parties that plaintiff was awarded assets valued at approximately $438,500, while defendant received assets valued at approximately $206,000. Plaintiff was also awarded the future lump sum payments from the structured settlement totaling $166,788 to be paid in the years 2004 through 2010, as well as monthly annuity payments for seventeen years, social security disability payments, and a small pension from his former employer beginning at age sixty-five. In addition to the property award, defendant was given the exclusive right to reside in the marital home until the youngest child reached nineteen years of age (a period of thirteen years, for which no monetary value was attributed in calculating the property awards above) . She was also awarded weekly child support of $267 per week that plaintiff will have to pay out of his property award, and will receive $588 per month in social security disability benefits for the children.
Defendant first argues that the trial court made several erroneous factual determinations relative to the valuation and characterization of the parties' assets and that the ultimate property distribution was inequitable under the circumstances.
In reviewing a trial court's property division in a divorce , we must first review the trial court's findings of fact. Sparks v Sparks, 440 Mich 141, 151; 485 NW2d 893 (1992); Draggoo v Draggoo, 223 Mich App 415, 429; 566 NW2d 642 (1997). The court's findings of fact will not be reversed unless they are clearly erroneous, i.e., we are left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made. Beason v Beason, 435 Mich 791, 805; 460 NW2d 207 (1990); Stoudemire v Stoudemire, 248 Mich App 325, 336-337; 639 NW2d 274 (2001). If we uphold the court's findings of fact, we must then decide whether the dispositional ruling was fair and equitable in light of those facts. We will affirm the dispositional ruling unless left with the firm conviction that the division was inequitable. Sands v Sands, 442 Mich 30, 34; 497 NW2d 493 (1993); Stoudemire, supra at 336-337; Hagen v Hagen, 202 Mich App 254, 258; 508 NW2d 196 (1993).
First, we reject defendant's claim that the trial court made a number of factual errors concerning the parties' marital property. Both the record below and the trial court's opinion clearly indicate that the court was aware that the parties' property included a monthly annuity from the settlement of a personal injury action, as well as an additional annuity held in the parties' investment accounts. We also conclude that the
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