Court Imputes Gross Weekly Income Upon Failure of Disclosure
by
Joseph C. Maya on Mar. 27, 2024
Summary: In the process of marriage dissolution, it is imperative that each party provide a full and frank disclosure of financial information to avoid failure of disclosure. Misrepresenting assets and income is “a serious and intolerable dereliction… which goes to the very heart of the proceeding.” Therefore, a court will remain unsympathetic when a party, whose own wrongful conduct limited his or her financial information available for court review, later complains that a court-calculated monetary award is improper.
The Superior Court of Connecticut: Divorce Action
In a divorce action, the Superior Court of Connecticut, Judicial District of Danbury at Danbury, in part, had to make an independent determination as to the gross weekly income of a plaintiff, because she was not fully forthcoming in providing the necessary financial information. In this action, the plaintiff wife and defendant husband were married in October 2004, and two minor children were born between them. The marriage broke down irretrievably, and the husband filed for dissolution of the marriage in April 2010.
The wife indicated that she had a rental property, but could not testify as to the amount of rental income. Instead, she stated that family members often received the rent money, and they in turn used those monies to pay the mortgage. The court found that it could not rely on the wife’s financial affidavits, as they lacked adequate documentary support. In addition, her claims that her two business ventures received cash income were not substantiated by invoices, written contracts, or leases. As such, the court took it upon itself to calculate the wife’s gross weekly income for use when considering distributions of marital property as well as alimony and child support orders.
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