Appeals court hears arguments on expert disclosure, alimony and property tracing in Paulson divorce appeal

The Utah Court of Appeals heard oral argument in Christopher Paulson v. Trisha (Patricia) Paulson, addressing (1) whether the family court correctly excluded a rebuttal expert report under Rule 26, (2) whether the exclusion effectively foreclosed Christopher’s alimony claim, and (3) whether the trial court correctly applied California transmutation and exhaustion-tracing principles to multiple property-summary-judgment motions arising under a prenuptial agreement.

Appellant Christopher Paulson, through counsel Rodney Parker, argued the expert-disclosure rule is ambiguous as applied to rebuttal experts and that the purported harm from a late or incomplete disclosure was largely self-inflicted and curable by reopening expert discovery. "The rule seems to suggest you can't disclose until the work is done," Parker told the panel, but he added counsel frequently disclose expected…