Summary
The Intermediate Court of Appeals of West Virginia affirmed the Greenbrier County Family Court’s denial of Charlene Fleshman’s motion for reconsideration concerning division of marital bank accounts. The court held that the May 7, 2018, order requiring equal division of the accounts had been reversed and set aside, and therefore could not be enforced through contempt. The court concluded that the family court’s findings were not clearly erroneous and its decision was not an abuse of discretion.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the family court erred by refusing to enforce the May 7, 2018, corrected divorce order's provision requiring equal division of the parties' marital bank accounts.
Holdings
- The family court properly refused to enforce the May 7, 2018, order because the circuit court had reversed and set aside that order's equitable-distribution provisions; therefore, Wife was not entitled to contempt enforcement of the bank-account provision.
- Family-court factual findings are reviewed for clear error, application of law to facts for abuse of discretion, and questions of law de novo.
Key quotations
“When a final order of a family court is appealed to the Intermediate Court of Appeals of West Virginia, the Intermediate Court of Appeals shall review the findings of fact made by the family court for clear error, and the family court’s application of law to the facts for an abuse of discretion. The Intermediate Court of Appeals shall review questions of law de novo.” (at 3)
“because [Wife’s] contempt action was not commenced [. . .] during the timeframe that the May 7, 2018, order was in effect, there is no avenue to enforce it.” (at 2)
Factual background
The parties were married in 1989 and divorced in 2017. A corrected divorce order entered in 2018 stated that marital checking and savings account funds remaining at separation would be divided equally, but the circuit court later reversed and set aside the equitable-distribution provisions of that order. The later operative family-court orders did not include the bank accounts in the property-division lists, and Wife did not challenge that omission in her appeals from those orders. The bank accounts were valued at approximately $27,000 at separation, and Wife first sought contempt enforcement concerning them in August 2024.
Procedural history
The parties' 2018 corrected divorce order stated that money remaining in marital checking and savings accounts at separation would be divided equally. The circuit court later reversed and set aside the corrected divorce order's provisions concerning equitable distribution and spousal support and remanded for further proceedings. Subsequent family court orders did not include the bank accounts in the property-division lists, and Wife did not raise the bank-account issue in her appeals from those orders. In 2024, Wife sought contempt enforcement of the 2018 order; the family court dismissed the petition and denied reconsideration, concluding that the operative order was the March 23, 2022, order and that the 2018 order could not be enforced because it had been reversed and remanded.