O’Brien v. O’Brien

The trial court entered judgment dissolving the marriage of Plaintiff and Defendant. During the pendency of the divorce action, Plaintiff sold shares of stock and exercised certain stock options without first receiving permission from Defendant or the trial court. The trial court found that Plaintiff’s transactions violated orders automatically entered under Practice Book 25-5 but that the violations were not willful. Because the transactions caused a significant loss to the marital estate, the trial court awarded a greater than even distribution of the marital property to Defendant. The Appellate Court reversed the trial court’s financial orders, concluding that, in an absence of a finding of contempt, the trial court lacked the authority to afford Defendant a remedy for Plaintiff’s violations of the automatic orders. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the trial court properly exercised its discretion in considering Plaintiff’s violations of the automatic orders in its division of the marital assets. View "O'Brien v. O'Brien" on Justia Law