It can be tremendously difficult to assess the value of the marital assets of a couple that is in the midst of divorce proceedings if one of the parties is the owner of a share of a business. These kinds of situations almost never come down to a simple case of just splitting the share down the middle and giving half to each party. It is almost always far more complicated than that. In Alabama, the case of Rumpel v. Skaggs had a couple that had been married since the early 1990s divorcing. When the couple was married the husband had been working as a law enforcement officer but retired after two years of marriage and received a full pension.
After he retired, the husband formed a corporation with his business partner so that he could purchase a large piece of real estate. The land that he wanted to buy had a strip mall built on it and the two men leased a few of the available spaces in that mall to other businesses unrelated to theirs. After a number of years of success in their business dealings the two partners decided to move in separate directions and dissolve their business partnership. Utilizing the Rules of Civil Procedure in Alabama, Rule 36, the wife, who was the defendant, made two Requests for Admission on the part of her husband, who was the plaintiff. One of these pertained to an amount that he had agreed to pay his former business partner for his interest in their company and the other pertained to the value of his share of the business.
Both of these requests were refused by the husband and the wife was ordered to pay nearly $250,000 plus fees and alimony over the next six years after individual appraisals of the business were conducted. It was determined after an appeal that an Alabama state statute had been misapplied by the trial judge and the case was remanded. The proceedings of that case are still pending.
