Fronsaglia v. Fronsaglia

Syllabus

The defendant appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court dissolving his marriage to the plaintiff and issuing certain financial orders. Held: 1. Contrary to the defendant's claim, the trial court did not abuse its discre- tion in issuing its financial orders by making a grossly disproportionate property distribution in the plaintiff's favor and assigning the majority of the marital debt to the defendant; that court's property distribution was not grossly disproportionate, as the defendant had dissipated $550,000 of marital assets in violation of the automatic orders, and the court merely reattributed those assets to the defendant. 2. There was ample evidence before the trial court to support its finding that the defendant had actual earnings of $160,000; evidence in the record of the defendant's past earnings and spending habits, as evinced by his bank statements and credit card accounts, supported the court's finding, and the defendant's reliance on Keusch v. Keusch (184 Conn. App. 822) was misplaced, as the reasoning in that case on which he relied had no bearing on the merits of this case. 3. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court erred by basing its alimony award to the plaintiff solely on his gross income rather than on his net income; the record revealed that that court did not rely solely on the defendant's gross income in determining its alimony award and that it did not state that it relied on the defendant's gross income, but merely referenced it; moreover, although the court did not expressly state that it considered the defendant's net income, this court inferred that it considered the relevant statutory factors (§ 46b-82) and all of the evidence submitted by the parties. 4. The defendant's claim that the trial court abused its discretion by awarding alimony to the plaintiff to punish him for his purported misdeeds was unavailing; that court was permitted to take into consideration all the causes for the dissol