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Property division battle rages on for Dodger owners

With the divorce rate at 50 percent, many Montgomery residents have gone through the often stressful divorce process. Complicated elements, such as plentiful assets or family businesses, can make a divorce even harder to end. In fact, some celebrity couples have spent more time in their divorce than they did in their marriage. For one high-profile couple, property division has continued to be an issue even after their divorce settlement.

This is primarily due to the fact that the couple owned a famous professional baseball team, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Frank and Jamie McCourt had reached a settlement for their divorce in October of 2010. Ex-wife Jamie was awarded $131 million, tax-free, as well as six mansions that the couple shared while Frank was given ownership over the Dodgers. After the divorce, though, Jamie felt she was cheated out of the agreement. According to her lawyer, she believes she was short-changed roughly $770 million. The couple is now in a public property division battle that has put the Dodgers in the middle.

In Tennessee, many state residents own family businesses. Property is usually divided as equally as possible, since Tennessee is an equitable distribution state. Marital property can often be difficult to divide, however. Factors such as the duration of the marriage and what falls under the marital property category can make the process difficult. Business assets are also susceptible to equitable distribution, but a 50/50 settlement is not always the outcome. The final results frequently depend on each party’s involvement with the business.

Any Montgomery resident concerned with property division may be in need of help, since a thorough understanding of current state law is required to reach a truly fair outcome. Property division is not always easy to predict in an equitable distribution state, and legal assistance is usually beneficial in documenting each spouse’s connection to their own assets.

Source: ABC News, “Ex-wife wants dodger divorce settlement tossed,” Greg Risling, April 24, 2013

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