Court of Appeals hears Stevenson dispute over offsets, valuation of Monnex and Bell Canyon funds

The Utah Court of Appeals heard oral argument in Stevenson v. Stevenson over whether the trial court misapplied Utah property-division principles when it declined to give an offset for marital expenses paid from funds traced to an account called Monnex and when it treated ongoing KMK rental revenues under a 2019 stipulation.

Julie Nelson, counsel for appellant Carrie Stevenson, told the panel: "This case should be a straight shot. Carrie maintained the marital estate. Shauna didn't." Nelson argued that Carrie paid taxes, insurance and repairs that the trial court failed to account for because it treated the funds incorrectly in its valuation and distribution calculations.

Nelson said the dispute turns on an order-of-operations question: whether certain Bell Canyon expenses should have been deducted from the Monnex corpus before dividing that asset in half. She pointed to a trial-court factual finding that the Monnex account had a value of about $197,000 at separation and to the court’s later calculation that identified $171,003.71 in expenses. Nelson told the court those expenses were paid from the Monnex/Marital corpus and that the trial court failed to…