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Wendt v. Wendt3/31/1998
STAMFORD NORWALK, JUDICIAL DISTRICT AT STAMFORD
THIS DECISION IS UNREPORTED AND MAY BE SUBJECT TO FURTHER APPELLATE REVIEW. COUNSEL IS CAUTIONED TO MAKE AN INDEPENDENT DETERMINATION OF THE STATUS OF THIS CASE.
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION
This contested dissolution of marriage action addresses a myriad of undecided marital financial issues in Connecticut. Counsel have informed the court that this decision may have an impact beyond the territorial boundaries of the State of Connecticut. At the commencement of trial, the parties presented a written stipulation to the court in which the parties agreed, that the marriage of the parties has broken down irretrievably, a dissolution of marriage ought to enter and no evidence would be offered as to the "causes for the dissolution of the marriage," a statutory factor contained in General Statutes 46b-81(c) and 46b-82.
That was the end of the parties' agreement. Virtually every aspect of the parties' financial relationship over the 31 years of the marriage was examined. The trial took 18 days. Two interlocutory appeals were taken to the Appellate Court during the trial, one of which was subject to Supreme Court review. Over one hundred exhibits were offered, a number of which contained hundreds of pages. The briefs of counsel, citations of non-Connecticut cases and law review references added another 1,500 pages for the court's consideration. Multiple experts testified for each party. Faria v. Faria, 38 Conn. Supp. 37, 38, 456 A.2d 1205 (1982).
Both counsel consider a number of matters set forth in the Table of Contents to be of first impression in Connecticut and request a resolution of each of these issues. Sheff v. O'Neill, 238 Conn. 1, 88, 678 A.2d 1267 (1996) (Borden, J., dissenting) ("I can think of no other case decided by this court that will have more impact on the daily lives of our citizenry than this case.")
The parties early on in the case submitted their thumbnail view of the main issue.
The plaintiff: "Marriage is a partnership, and I should be entitled to 50%. I gave thirty-one years of my life. I loved the defendant. I worked hard and I was very loyal."
The defendant: "When all the media hype, feminist theory and rhetoric are put aside, this case is relatively simple and straightforward. It involves a long marriage and a large estate, the distribution of which is governed by a Connecticut statute that has been on the books for almost twenty-five (25) years."
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Trial information page 1
All statutory criteria must be considered page 46
Non-monetary contributions of non-wage earner spouse must be considered page 52
Non-monetary contributions of wage earner spouse must be considered page 59
Quantification of non-monetary contributions page 61
"Enough is Enough" is not Connecticut law page 84
Connecticut is not a community property state page 102
There is no statutory presumption of equal division regardless of the amount of resources page 108
The 1974 Equal Rights Amendment to the Connecticut constitution has not changed the equitable division standards to require a fifty-fifty division page 133
In sex discrimination claims under the state ERA, strict scrutiny is the standard page 151
The state ERA does not render General Statutes
46b-81(c) and 46b-82 unconstitutional on the basis that there is inherent gender bias due to no presumption of a fifty-fifty division of property page 158
1. Textual approach page 162 2. Holdings and dicta of
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