Ex-Husband’s Taunt about Winning Lottery Insufficient to Reopen Divorce

Tennessee case summary on post-divorce modification.

John Raymond Kautz v. Doris Diane Kautz Berberich

The parties in this Polk County, Tennessee, case were married in Indiana in 1996 and had no children.  The wife filed for divorce in 2007.  The parties eventually reconciled, but only after executing a postnuptial agreement.  Four years later, the husband filed for divorce, and in 2012, the parties divided the marital property through a marital dissolution agreement, which the court approved.

In 2016, the wife came back to court asking that the agreement be set aside.  The wife presented as evidence an e-mail from the husband in which he said that he was enjoying his lakefront dream home, thanks to his lottery winnings.  Since the husband had never disclosed any lottery winnings, she claimed that the marital dissolution agreement was void.

The case was heard by Judge J. Michael Sharp, who heard the conflicting evidence.  The wife had evidence of a bank deposit which she alleged was the result of over $300,000 in lottery winnings.  The husband testified that the most he had ever won in the lottery was $3.  He also pointed out that the wife had been aware of the $300,000 deposit for years.

The trial court initially ruled in favor of the wife.  However, it later ruled that even though the husband had insinuated that he had concealed assets, he had, in fact, not done so.  Therefore, the trial court denied the wife’s motion, and she appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The appeals court first noted the standard of review, which is de novo, but with a presumption of correctness of factual findings.  In particular, it noted that this case was based in large part upon the trial court’s assessment of the husband’s credibility.

The wife pointed out that the trial court had not specifically made a finding of credibility.  The appeals court stated that this is the preferable practice, but the appeals court can also acknowledge implicit credibility determinations.  In this case, the record supported the fact that the trial court had implicitly found the husband to be credible.  Therefore, it upheld the court’s findings.

After reviewing the evidence, the Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court’s resolution of the case and affirmed.  The appeals court’s opinion was penned by Chief Judge D. Michael Swiney, and Judges Andy D. Bennett and Thomas R. Frierson, II, joined.

No. E2019-00796-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Mar. 18,  2021).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see The Tennessee Divorce Process: How Divorces Work Start to Finish.