Nature of the Case
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Facts
H and W were living together since 1980. The purchased a home as joint tenants and held themselves out as married. They had a son in 1985, and W stayed at home to take care of him and homeschooled him. They bought the current marital home using about $25,000 realized from the sale of their Massachusetts home. In 1993, W decided that they needed to be married because she was concerned that if anything happened to H, she and the son would not be taken care of, so the couple married in October of 1993. In 1995, H started his own engineering consultant business. W helped Hl with the management of this business for about one year. In the fall of 1998, W began work as a psychiatric technician and currently works full time. Divorce was commenced in 2000. H and the son continued to live in the marital home in Hampden. The parties agreed that after the divorce, the son would continue to live with H, but would visit W whenever he wanted, and the parties would share parental rights and responsibilities. W lives in an apartment and shares expenses with a domestic partner, who earns approximately $28,000 a year. W would like to go to college to earn a degree so that she could become an American sign language interpreter. W needed $11,250 in dental work and was being treated for depression. The marital home is valued at $119,300. H has a retirement account of $115,000 from his ten years of employment in Massachusetts, prior to his marriage, which he rolled over into an account with A.G. Edwards when he left his job in Massachusetts. He has not added any money to this account since that time, and the account is in H's name alone. H's mother died and left an estate worth nearly half a million dollars. H and his mother had a joint account with a value of about $43,000. After her death, H separated this account into two accounts in local banks. One account worth about $30,000 was placed in the parties' joint names but was used only to pay costs of his mother's estate. H had a debit card for this joint account, but she never used it. After the parties had separated and the estate costs had been paid, H placed this money in his separate account. H was expected to receive $240,000 from his mother's estate, and his son was expected to receive $120,000. The court determined that the $115,000 retirement account was H's nonmarital property. The money from H's mother's estate is nonmarital property. Thus, the court concluded that H had nonmarital assets of approximately $355,000, and W had none. H received approximately $78,300 and W $18,600 from the court's initial division of the marital estate, but to ensure a more equitable division, the court ordered H to pay W $50,000. Both H and W appealed.
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