Bevilacqua v. Bevilacqua

Citations

• 201 Conn. App. 261

Syllabus

The defendant appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court dissolving his marriage to the plaintiff and entering related financial orders. He claimed that the court abused its discretion in denying his request for a continuance of the trial, erred by ordering him to pay periodic alimony to the plaintiff, contrary to the parties' prenuptial agreement, and erred by awarding certain real property to him in its distribution order. Held: 1. The trial court's denial of the defendant's motion for a continuance of the trial was not an abuse of discretion; although the delays in the trial caused by the illness of the defendant's counsel and by the lack of an available judge were outside of the parties' control, by the time of the defendant's motion, the matter had been pending for more than 1000 days and involved the custody of minor children, and the defendant's unsubstantiated claim that he required a continuance because could not miss additional days of work was unavailing. 2. The trial court properly concluded that the enforcement of the parties' prenuptial agreement would be unconscionable and properly awarded the plaintiff alimony; the defendant was responsible for his absence from the trial, which he claimed prevented him from contradicting the plaintiff's testimony regarding her capabilities or her employability, and there was evidence in the record that injuries the plaintiff sustained in a motor vehicle accident impaired her ability to work full-time and to achieve the earning capacity she had at the time she signed the prenuptial agreement, which represented a dramatic change in her financial circum- stances. 3. The trial court properly determined the ownership and value of certain real properties and properly awarded those properties to the defendant; the defendant had listed the properties and assigned values to the proper- ties in his prenuptial disclosure, there was evidence that the defendant had received mail regarding the properties from a ta