No. 27984 (October 14, 2009)
Opinion pdf
OPINION OF THE COURT BY WATANABE, J.
In this appeal, Defendant-Appellant Brenda Irene Dickson-Weinberg (Wife or Defendant) challenges (1) the divorce decree entered by the Family Court of the First Circuit (family court) on May 18, 2006 (Divorce Decree), which ended her marriage to Plaintiff-Appellee Jan Michael Weinberg (Husband or Plaintiff) and divided their marital estate; and (2) various orders of the family court that led up to or followed the entry of the Divorce Decree.
Wife raises the following points on appeal:
(1) The family court's 86-page "omnibus" findings of fact (FsOF) and conclusions of law (CsOL), which was signed by three judges without any indication of which judge adopted which finding or conclusion, did not comply with Hawai'i Family Court Rules (HFCR) Rule 52 (2000);
(2) The family court erred when it refused to enforce (a) an agreement incident to divorce (AITD) entered into between Husband and Wife (collectively, the parties or the couple) in a prior divorce action that was dismissed, (b) an agreement to designate Wife as a beneficiary of Husband's individual retirement accounts (IRAs) (IRA Agreement), and (c) a quitclaim deed conveying the parties' home in Nu'uanu, Hawai'i (Nu'uanu property) to Wife;
(3) The family court denied Wife her due-process rights when it refused to relax pretrial deadlines, denied her requests for a trial continuance, and barred her from introducing experts, exhibits, and documentary evidence because she missed discovery and other deadlines imposed by the family court after her second counsel withdrew from representing her;
(4) The family court did not comply with Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 580-47 (2006) or partnership principles when it denied Wife credit for Category l assets and valued Husband's law practice without considering Husband's earnings or the unliquidated contingency-fee cases pending at the date of the completion of the evidentiary part of trial (DOCOEPOT); and
(5) The family court failed to consider all the factors enumerated in HRS § 580-47 (a) and abused its discretion when it denied Wife, who was unemployed throughout the marriage, any alimony.
We conclude that (1) Wife's first point on appeal is without merit; (2) the family court did not err in refusing to enforce the AITD and the quitclaim deed for the Nu'uanu property, but did err in disregarding the IRA Agreement in dividing the property of the parties; (3) the family court abused its discretion when it refused to extend pretrial deadlines and thereafter sanctioned Wife for missing pretrial deadlines by precluding her from introducing evidence that she did not produce by pretrial deadlines; and (4) the family court incorrectly valued Husband's law practice. Our disposition of this appeal renders it unnecessary to address Wife's remaining points on appeal. [footnote omitted]