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Probate Appeal Challenges Contempt Rulings Over Stock-Option Division and Health Insurance
Summary
Parties disputed whether a husband was in contempt for failing to split proceeds from Custom Ink options and for lapsing health insurance; the appeals argument questioned timing, whether alleged acts predated enforceable orders, and the scope of fee awards.
An appellate panel reviewed contested contempt rulings arising from a divorce judgment that divided certain stock options and required the husband to maintain health insurance.
Matthew Burack, counsel for the wife, argued the probate court’s initial divorce judgment plainly ordered an equal division of proceeds from the husband’s Custom Ink options ("the father's 250,000 Custom Ink options") and that the husband’s disposition or exercise of those options before the wife received half violated the judgment. Burack asked the court to overturn the noncontempt determination and to find the husband willfully disobeyed the order; he also urged a larger award of attorney fees to cover two years of discovery and enforcement efforts.
The husband, representing himself at argument, told the panel the actions complained of mostly predated the final and amended judgments and that the probate judge correctly concluded there was no clear-and-convincing evidence of willful disobedience tied to the later amended judgment. He pointed to trial findings that the original divorce judge could not determine precisely whether options had been exercised during the trial and that some shares had been transferred to the children and that the court found insufficient evidence that those transfers would have preserved value for the marital estate.
Counsel disputed whether contempt adjudication required a post-judgment violation, whether expenditures during an extended divorce were constrained by Rule 411 and the court’s temporary orders, and whether the probate judge adequately explained why she limited attorney-fee recovery (the judge awarded $5,000 of a claimed roughly $56,000 fee request). The panel questioned counsel on the timeline in the written findings, the standard for contempt (clear order and willful violation), and whether the judge’s factual findings about exercised options and transfers to children supported the noncontempt result.
After argument the court took the appeal under submission.
