The Dodger Divorce case grinds on

News in the McCourt divorce case:

The new owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers must make public a single document that reveals their financial arrangement with previous owner Frank McCourt, under a ruling made on Wednesday by a judge in Los Angeles.

The judge rejected Guggenheim Baseball Management’s motion to seal the document, part of a divorce proceeding between McCourt and his ex-wife Jamie McCourt. In 2011, Jamie McCourt agreed to give up claims that she owned half of the baseball team in exchange for $131 million. During a Chapter 11 reorganization, Frank McCourt later sold the Dodgers for $2.15 billion to a consortium led by Chicago’s Guggenheim Partners and former Los Angeles Lakers star Magic Johnson.

The sale prompted Jamie McCourt to move to set aside the settlement, claiming fraud.

She sought a document summarizing Guggenheim Partners’ financial arrangement with her ex-husband. Guggenheim, which had agreed to turn over the document, filed a motion to seal on May 13, claiming “confidential business information.”

In his ruling from the bench, Los Angeles County, Calif., Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon ordered that the document be made public.

Kelli Sager, a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine in Los Angeles, had opposed the motion to seal on behalf of the Los Angeles Times. In an emailed statement to The National Law Journal, she wrote: “We are pleased with the court’s ruling; it’s unfortunate that GBM [Guggenheim Baseball Management] sought to keep this document secret, but we are gratified that the judge recognized the important public interests involved.”

Gordon gave Guggenheim 10 days to seek a stay of his order. James Bates, a spokesman at Sitrick & Co., in an emailed statement on Guggenheim’s behalf, wrote: “We respect the court’s opinion, are not going to seek to appeal and will be cooperating accordingly.”

In April, Gordon held evidentiary hearings in the divorce case. In preparation for those hearings, Jamie McCourt had sought depositions of her ex-husband’s financial advisers, including Peter Cohen, senior managing director of Blackstone Advisory Partners. In an interview with Forbes, Cohen acknowledged that the $2.15 billion price “was not more than [he] anticipated on day one when [he] started on this.” On March 27, New York Supreme Court Judge Jeffrey Oing ordered Cohen to answer questions by Jamie McCourt’s lawyers.

On April 15, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross, who oversaw the Dodgers’ bankruptcy, ruled that Jamie McCourt could not obtain documents that were part of confidential negotiations between Major League Baseball and Frank McCourt.

In its sealing motion, Guggenheim attorney David Enzminger, a partner at Winston & Strawn in Los Angeles, wrote that the firm had agreed to provide a summary of Frank McCourt’s financial benefits to Jamie McCourt if she would drop subpoenas of the team’s new owners and her request to depose Stan Kasten, the president of the Dodgers. Under that arrangement, however, the financial summary, which includes the Dodger sale price and a joint venture between Guggenheim and Frank McCourt to develop land, including the parking lot around Dodger Stadium, would be provided only under seal.

“The financial summary contains highly sensitive information related to ongoing business ventures between Guggenheim and Mr. McCourt,” Enzminger wrote. “This information is private and Guggenheim has an interest in maintaining it as such.”

In her filing for the Los Angeles Times, Sager wrote that the terms of the purchase are of “substantial public interest because they concern a major real estate transaction involving the ownership and control of Dodger Stadium, an iconic Southern California landmark with rich public involvement and a lurid history of real estate development.”

In response, Enzminger said in court papers that the confidentiality of Guggenheim’s business dealings overrode the public’s interest in “a popular American sport.”

Jamie McCourt’s attorney, Bertram Fields, a partner at Los Angeles-based Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger, said the agreement extended to Frank McCourt’s attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell. One of those attorneys, Robert Sacks, a partner in the Los Angeles office, did not return a call for comment.

Fields said the document was important to Jamie McCourt’s argument that her ex-husband undervalued his team assets when negotiating the divorce settlement. “In other words, it showed that it was much more than the $2.15 billion that was announced in the papers because the papers hadn’t seen the whole deal,” Fields said.

It was unclear when the document would be made public. Just before Gordon’s ruling, Guggenheim filed a redacted version as a proposed alternative to unsealing the entire document. The redacted version states that Guggenheim agreed to purchase the land surrounding Dodger Stadium for $150 million as part of the joint venture with McCourt. The joint venture receives $14 million per year for use of that land, most of which is a parking lot.

Frank McCourt also received a free suite at Dodger Stadium that seats at least 20 people.

NY Judge Refuses to Order Support for Jilted Girlfriend

A New York judge has refused to order an advertising executive to make support payments to his former girlfriend, notwithstanding the exec’s promsies to support her, and his promises that if the couple ever broke up he would treat their separation as if they had been married. The former girlfriend had asked the court to impose a trust in her favor over certain of the defendant’s assets as a means of enforcing his promise – unfulfilled – to support her after the couple split up. In dismissing the claim for a constructive tryst, the court noted that the plaintiff had failed to establish 3 of the 4 legal requirements for the imposition of a constructive trust and that, in any event, longstanding New York policy recognizes that unmarried couples do not have the same property and financial rights that married couples do when a relationship ends. Which all goes to show that, yes, marriage does still matter, and that in some cases promises are worth the paper they are written on. An interesting question, which I will write more on when I am further into my research, is whether the court would have enforced the equivalent of a pre-marital agreement if the cad exec had put his promises in writing. Any New York folk have any insight into what NY law is on that question?

PA Judge Denies Divorce to Same Sex Couple

In an interesting case out of Berks County, The Legal Intelligencer reports that Berks County Court of Common Pleas Judge Scott Lash has ruled that he cannot grant a divorce to a same sex couple who married last year in Massachusetts. Massachusetts recognizes same sex marriages, but Pennsylvania does not. In his ruling, Lash reasoned that he would not recognize the couple’s marriage under Pennsylvania law because homosexual marriage does not, in the Judge’s view, meet the definition of a “fundamental right” as enunciated by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The couple could not seek a divorce in Massachuestts because that state’s law requires that parties filing for divorce live in the state for a year before filing. I would fully expect that this case will be appealed, but a reversal would seem unlikely. As our society becomes increasingly more mobile, however, it is inevitable that judge’s in states not recognizing same sex marriage will increasingly be called upon to consider the whole range of associated legal issues.

Study Discusses Children Watching Television In Daycare

Do you know how much television your kids watch every day?  Do you really?  If your children are in day care, you probably assume that they are doing things like taking naps and learning to play nicely with others, but you might be surprised to learn that many day care centers allow child to spend as much as two hours a day in front of a television.

A study published last week in the journal Pediatrics, “Preschool-Aged Children’s Television Viewing in Child Care Settings” by Dimitri A. Christakis, MD, MPH and Michelle M. Garrison, PhD, was the the first to look at TV watching in child care in more than 20 years.  It found that the amount of time children in child care spend watching TV has doubled since the last study, and preschoolers in child care may now spend more than a third of their 12 waking hours each day in front of a TV (when taking into consideration the two to three hours many parents allow at home).

The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages television viewing of any kind in the first two years of life and recommends a daily limit of only one to two hours of quality programming for older children. Children go to day care to develop social skills, build on cognitive abilities and enjoy imaginative play, as well as allowing their parents to work.  Other research has connected excessive TV watching during the preschool years with language delay, obesity, attention problems and aggression.

Source:  “Some Kids See Lots of TV in Day Care” by Donna Gordon Blankinship, published at AOL News.

Source for post: South Carolina Family Law Blog

Texas Court Rules Gay Couple Can Divorce

A surprise court ruling from last week has heated up the gay-marriage debate in the state of Texas. A Dallas judge has permitted a gay couple, who had married in another state, to get a divorce even though Texas has banned gay marriage.

Judge Tena Callahan of the Family District Court ruled in favor of the divorce on October 1, reasoning that the ban violated the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the right to equal protection. While gay-rights advocates have applauded the decision, opponents are disparaging the ruling.The two men, known in the media only as J.B. and H.B., married in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2006 and moved to Dallas after one spouse’s company transferred him there in 2007. They decided to divorce last January, but found they could only do so in Texas, since Massachusetts only grants divorces to couples living in the state.

“It’s not fair to make them uproot their lives, move back to another state, wait a year, and then file for divorce,” the couple’s divorce lawyer, Peter A. Schulte, told the New York Times after the ruling.J.B., meanwhile, viewed the decision less in terms of its legal and social ramifications than in a personal way. “Some have called for this to be a day of victory or a cause for celebration. It is actually a day of great personal sadness, as a chapter to my life ends,” he said in a press statement by way of his divorce attorney. “This is the common ground on which I stand with any person who has faced the end of their marriage.”

But Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott plans to appeal Callahan’s decision. Abbott was successful in blocking a civil dissolution of a gay union in 2003.

And the state’s governor, Rick Perry, supports Abbott’s position. “Texas voters and lawmakers have repeatedly affirmed the view that marriage is defined as between one man and one woman,” Governor Perry said in a statement. “I believe the ruling is flawed and should be appealed… Traditional marriage will be upheld in our state.”

Jon Nelson, a gay-rights spokesperson in Fort Worth, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “It’s a breath of fresh air that some jurist had enough courage to see discrimination for what it is.”

Currently, the only U.S. states that recognize gay marriage are Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and Iowa. New Hampshire will follow suit and legalize gay marriage in January.

Source: DivorceMag.com

Some Practical Advice About Money

There are two reasons family law will always be a busy area of practice.  The reasons are that there are two subjects we do not teach in school: conflict resolution and money management.  If people could manage their money or the conflict in their lives, the divorce business would be in for a major downturn.

Practical financial advice is hard to come by.  And we say this with some authority because we have been looking for professionals who understand household finance.  Yes, there are thousands of publications out there that will tell you how to ladder certificates of deposit or dollar cost average your way into index funds.  But, how much you spend on a car or an apartment often determines whether you have any money to invest at all.

Ironically, we found some sensible and practical advice in the September, 2009 issue of Glamour Magazine. No kidding.  Wedged in between Jessica Simpson’s views on men and three flat belly secrets we found an article by Sophia Banay supported by a woman named Galia Gichon who founded something called “Down to Earth Finance.”  The magazine is worth buying for all of the advice but the segment we particularly liked was the part discussing how to budget a $50,000 income.  Gichon breaks down expenses into four categories. She takes the budget and converts to monthly income of about $4150.  She appears to allow for income taxes although that number is not discussed.  But her breakdown is divided between:

Fixed expenses that don’t change monthly                         $1665 a month

Discretionary living expenses                                             $830-970 a month

Retirement savings                                                            $417 a month minimum

General Savings                                                                 $140-280 a month

Gichon comments that fixed expenses including rent, utilities and car payments should not consume more than 60% of your net income (gross income less income taxes).  She suggests that rent or mortgage payments should not exceed half of the fixed expense budget, although this can be a tough assignment in many urban parts of this country. But if that is where life takes you, the answer may be that you don’t drive the same car or limit your discretionary expenses.

Obviously, it is also possible to forego general savings, especially in a world where you are already saving for retirement.  The article suggests that discretionary expenses be limited to 30% of net pay.  This is where the weak tend to falter at the altar of clothing stores, restaurants and Starbucks.  Another contributor to the article, Maria Bartiromo of Closing Bell on CNBC sagely offers that you allow yourself a day before making any major discretionary purchase.  Time afford perspective and you may actually discover that television is almost as enjoyable on the 30 inch flat screen even though the 42 inch beckons.

The article also addresses the subject of debt.  In the past the standard advice is that you need to save three to six months income to cover you for the “rainy day” of illness or unemployment.  Today, consumer credit may fill in the gap, but we are finding that many people are already using their cards to fund expenses they can’t afford long before the rain day ever comes.  These are folks who simply cannot survive if a crisis emerges because they are already deep in high rate debt.

The goal is to budget but before you can intelligently budget you must first be thoroughly familiar with what you bring home and what you currently spend.  It is not a pretty task but people who want to have money when they stop working had better address the question sooner rather than later no matter what their marital status.

Source for post: Pennsylvania Family Law

Coming Back Soon

I’ve been on a very long hiatus from posting here – my apologies. There will be much new content coming very soon. Thanks for reading!

5 Steps To Managing Your Money And Your Marriage

In our society, money represents power, success, and often even your value as a person. We say (misquoting the Bible,) “Money is the root of all evil,” or “money is power;” or “he who has the gold, makes the rules.”  We consider it spiritual to take a vow of poverty, and we prosecute and convict people who get greedy.

Money is serious stuff. Some of us think people who make a lot of  money must lack character; others think poor people are morally deficient. These attitudes are not the way we want to think, they’re prejudices, acquired before we learned to think rationally. But these prejudices can cause huge troubles in marriage, including financial infidelity – where one or both parties spend money out of resentment,  jeopardizing the couple’s financial security.

Money issues couples fight about include: Who pays for what? Who keeps records, pays bills, controls budget, etc.? When, how and why do we spend money? One wants to save, the other wants to spend. How do we make big financial decisions? Or, perhaps, they can’t talk about money at all without arguing.

If you and your partner tend to think the business end of a relationship is not a romantic topic for courtship, you may not discuss it until you can’t avoid it, and then you fight. You may not think of your marriage as a business deal, but a huge part of it is just that. Just like a business, a marriage takes in income, pays expenses, and is supposed to have a little profit (savings) left over.

The business aspects of marriage are clear to me, because for 15 years before I went back to school and eventually became licensed as a therapist, I was an accountant in business. Just like a small business, your relationship has one or more sources of income, you have expenses, and, like a business, your marriage is supposed to make a profit — to create savings, investments and equity (which a business would call assets) and have money left over in the bank at the end of the month.

As partners in a marriage you have similar financial responsibilities to partners in a business. In fact, some businesses are called partnerships, and we often use the same word for relationships. Family members are somewhat like workers, when they do maintenance, chores and homework, and somewhat like clients, who receive services from the partners, Mom and Dad.

Mom and Dad are the Chief Operating and Financial Officers, who must figure out how to allocate the funds coming in, and how to provide the necessary guidance and services to their children and to each other. In business, there’s a lot of discussion about ‘corporate culture’ — the attitudes and practices within the business: how employees and executives deal with each other, the ethics of the company, and their focus, or lack thereof, on meeting goals and becoming successful.

Likewise, your marriage and family have a ‘family culture’ — how you interact as partners and family members; your mutual goals, hopes and dreams; and how successful or unsuccessful you are at meeting your goals. Obviously, a family culture that involves a lot of fighting about money will be less efficient and not as successful at meeting its goals.

No matter what your circumstances, creating financial security can make life easier. To do this, you must learn to manage your money wisely. The amount of money you bring in may not be large, but if you manage it well, it can be all you need. On the other hand, we have all heard stories of people who earned vast sums of money (lottery winners, celebrities or dot-com millionaires, for example) and who squandered it until they had nothing left.

The amount of your income will not determine the amount of your “family profit” unless you manage it well. When you work together to handle your finances intelligently, you can create the financial security you need to live life comfortably. When your partnership extends to making smooth financial decisions and meeting your money goals without struggling and arguing, you’ll find that everything else you do becomes less stressful.

USING BUSINESS SKILLS AT HOME

Viewing your family dispassionately as a business doesn’t sound romantic, but if you can step back from your feelings long enough to view your relationship from this perspective, your financial situation make more sense, money problems will be easier to solve, and you’ll be able to discuss financial decisions with less difficulty. Here are some guidelines for using business skills at home.

1. Don’t React — Respond.
As I said in the previous chapter, neither of you would argue with the boss, colleagues at work, or a child’s teacher the way you argue with each other. Even if your boss makes you angry, most likely you would use self-control at the office, and blow off steam in private to your co-workers or a friend. Then, when you had a chance to think about the situation, you’d develop a better way of handling it, and perhaps approach your boss with a considered solution. You can do the same thing with your spouse when you have a money problem.  Instead of saying the first thing that occurs to you, such as criticism or blaming, stop and think of a response more likely to lead to a discussion of the problem, rather than an argument.

2. Use positive manipulation.
We often think of manipulation as a bad thing, as dishonest. However, acting in a way that makes it more likely to get a good response is not always deceitful or insidious. When you present an idea or solution, think about what your spouse would like about it, and lead with that. “Honey, you know that new car you’ve been wanting? I think I have a way for us to get it.. We could take out some equity on the house to renovate the kitchen, we could get your new car, and the interest would be so much cheaper than a car loan.” This is truthful, thoughtful, and clearly shows the husband how both of their wants can be taken care of, so it’s more likely to get a positive response.

3. Have a Formal Meeting.
Just as you would in business, sit down for a real meeting about important financial issues. Don’t expect to be able to discuss finances successfully while you’re on the run, when it’s late at night, or while watching TV. Instead, make a date for discussing finances, and take the time to sit down together, with all the proper information, and discuss your needs, wants and means. Follow a meeting method like Robert’s Rules of Order, to keep the discussion on track. If a difficult problem arises, use the problem solving skills at the end of this chapter.

4. Take Finances Seriously.
Healthy businesses keep a close eye on the bottom line. In marriage, this means being careful about your money, but also not using money as a weapon against each other, or being irresponsible about it. A successful, happy marriage requires that both partners act like grownups. It’s not surprising if you have disagreements about how much to save, when and what to spend and who makes financial decisions, because such differences are normal between people. If you take them seriously, and sit down to solve them together with mutual good will, your different points of view will become assets, not problems.

5. Check in Regularly.
As you do in business, have a brief check-in as frequently as possible. In the morning, or the night before, compare your daily schedules. Even if the things on your schedule don’t really involve your spouse, mention them, so that each of you will know if you’re facing anything important, or challenging in the day ahead. When you have an idea of what’s involved in each others’ daily lives while you’re apart, you will be much more able to respond in a helpful fashion to each other, especially when sudden changes or problems arise.  For example, you can say I have to pick up some clients at the airport today, and I don’t know what the traffic will be like, so I could be late tonight.”

When you follow these guidelines for handling money together, you’ll understand each other better, and you’ll both understand your goals and feel more motivated to follow the plans you make.

Source: Divorce360.com

Does Divorce Make Women Look Older?

Divorce is one of several factors now found to add years to a woman’s face.

Lots of things make us old. Previous research has shown smoking causes premature aging in men and women, literally etching the aging in their faces. Other research has found that poor skin tone can add a decade to a woman’s perceived age.

In the new work, researchers photographed the faces of 186 pairs of identical twins, mostly women, and asked them each a series of questions about their life habits and medical backgrounds. Four other people then reviewed all the photos and guessed the ages of each person.

Women who were divorced were judged to look nearly two years older than their siblings who were married, single or widowed, according to an article at the The Los Angeles Times web site. The research was led by Bahman Guyuron, chairman of the department of plastic surgery at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, part of Case Western Reserve University. It was reported in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Only the results for women were released. Other factors that made one twin look older than a sibling:

• Sun exposure
• Smoking and alcohol use
• Antidepressant use

Antidepressants may cause facial sagging, Guyuron speculated.

Interestingly, being heavier made those under age 40 look older, but it made those over 40 look younger, Guyuron and colleagues report. Previous research has suggested that a little weight – particularly in the cheeks – looks good on people as they age. Predictably for a plastic surgeon, Guyuron said his findings support “fillers” used in plastic surgery.

For those who prefer to keep the looks they’re given, perhaps some comfort can be found in the old adage “you’re only as old as you feel.” A study in December found that older people tend to feel about 13 years younger than their chronological age.

Read more in LiveScience.com

Source: California Divorce and Family Law Blog

Work On Your Credit Score Before Divorce

On a couple’s wedding day, divorce is the furthest thing from their minds. At such a wonderful, joyous time in one’s life, it is difficult to consider the possibility that the relationship will end. However it does occur on occasion. Many people get married every day and over half the population has been divorced. In the beginning the bad credit of your partner can be overlooked, but not for long. Sometimes, the stress of dealing with financial issues can ruin the relationship before the couple takes their first steps down the aisle. Still others may become vengeful, wanting to place their ex deep in debt.

When you get married, you are only responsible for debt you incurred as a couple. Keep in mind that, as a couple, one person’s bad credit rating will affect the both of you when trying to get a loan or a line of credit. Don’t be surprised when these joint applications are turned down. It is essential that you both discuss your finances before you walk down the aisle. Many marriages break up because of financial difficulties. Many couples avoid discussing financial arrangements in hopes that the subject will not rear its ugly head. Unfortunately, that usually indicates that it will.

Keeping on top of a situation has never had a negative effect on any relationship, and open communication will only make the relationship stronger. You should each obtain a copy of your credit report, then sit and have an open conversation about finances. After speaking openly, enlist the aid of a professional and consolidate all your debt. You can alleviate any future problems if you consult with an expert who will be completely honest with you. If you and your spouse can’t come to an agreement regarding an issue, you should have your debt manager’s contact information close at hand to avoid an argument. Of course, this won’t work for divorcing couples. If by chance your divorce is amicable, get ready to hate each other at least some of the time and to disagree often. Truthfully speaking, if you really did get along so well, you probably wouldn’t be divorcing.

After a divorce, you must protect yourself. You should alert the credit reporting agencies when you separate or divorce. All the important information will then be recorded for each of you separately and the agencies will help you make individual transactions. You should make sure that anyone you still owe money to has your updated contact information. Even though it may seem childish, divorced people have a habit of tossing away their former spouse’s mail. Following a divorce, close all joint accounts and pay all balances if possible. If there was a substantial amount of debt acquired during your marriage, you should consult with your attorney about including a plan to resolve the situation during your divorce proceedings. As far as divorce is concerned, get everything in writing or it won’t hold water.

Although your marriage may not be forever, credit problems can be. Regardless of how much love you feel for your spouse, you need to protect your own interests. It sound awfully formal, but in the long run you will be thankful you did.

Source for post: Charles Sellestor