Court Docs From Another Case Not New Evidence For New Trial
Tennessee case summary on property division and standard for new trial in divorce.
Sonya Lee Westbrooks v. Earl Lavon Westbrooks
The husband and wife in this Hamilton County, Tennessee, case had been married for twenty years when the wife filed for divorce in 2013. The trial took place in 2017. The husband had a retirement account that predated the marriage, but he never produced documentation showing the account’s value at the time of the marriage. Accordingly, the court, Judge Marie Williams, divided it equally between the parties.
The husband then moved to reopen the case on the grounds of having newly discovered evidence, namely, documentation as to the premarital value of the account. The trial court denied the motion, and ruled that the husband could have produced the evidence before trial, since the information was all in the public domain.
The husband then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. He argued that the trial court erred in not reopening the case.
The appeals court noted that the standard for recently discovered evidence had recently changed. However, it noted that one part of the test remained: A new trial could be granted only if the evidence was not known to the moving party, and couldn’t have been found with reasonable diligence.
Here, the alleged new evidence was in another court decree. The trial court had pointed out that this information had always been available, and that it did not constitute “newly discovered evidence” for that reason.
Upon reviewing the evidence, the appeals court held that the lower court had applied the correct standards, and that a new trial was not warranted.
For this reason, the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s judgment. It also awarded the wife her attorney fees for the appeal, and remanded the case for her to collect those fees.
No. E2018-01993-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Oct. 29, 2019).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see The Tennessee Divorce Process: How Divorces Work Start to Finish.
