After Short Tennessee Marriage Husband Gets ’69 Mustang

Tennessee case summary on property division in divorce after short marriage.

Sharon Lynnette Howard v. Randall Lynn Howard

The husband and wife were married for approximately three years before their Tennessee divorce.  At the time of the divorce, the husband was 55 years old and the wife was 49.  It was the husband’s fourth marriage and the wife’s third, and there were no children born to the marriage.  At the time of the divorce, the husband earned approximately $100,000 per year and the wife earned about $45,000.  The wife filed for divorce, alleging irreconcilable differences and inappropriate marital conduct.

Before the marriage, the husband had owned the initial marital residence along with his second wife, since they were still finalizing a divorce settlement.  The husband purchased a new home, which was on land owned in the past by his family, although it had been owned by others at the time of this sale.  The wife’s name was placed on the title after the property suffered tornado damage and repairs were made.  For part of the marriage, the wife’s elderly mother had lived with them in the marital residence.

The trial court awarded the marital residence to the wife, along with a 1969 Mustang.  The husband then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.  He argued that the property distribution was inappropriate given the short-term nature of the marriage.

The appeals court first noted that one of the factors in making a property distribution in a divorce case is the duration of the marriage.  The overall goal of the statute is to place the parties in the same respective positions they would have been in without the marriage.

The house was valued at $265,000, but had a total equity of about $52,000.  The trial court had credited the wife for payments she had made on property that no longer existed, such as payment of an early-withdrawal penalty from the husband’s 401(k).  The husband argued that crediting her for property that no longer existed was inappropriate given the short duration of the marriage.

The appeals court, however, disagreed.  It closely examined the parties’ financial affairs, and concluded that both spouses had benefited from the contributions made by the wife, and that it was appropriate for the trial court to consider all of them.  After reviewing all of the evidence, the appeals court concluded that the lower court had properly weighed all of the contributions by both spouses, and that the overall distribution was fair.

The husband did fare better, however, when it came to the 1969 Mustang, which was valued at $10,000.  The appeals court concluded that the car should have been awarded to the husband.  For this reason, it affirmed the lower court’s judgment after making this modification.

No. E2014-01991-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Oct. 29, 2015).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Property Division in Tennessee Divorce.