James Dortch, Sr. vs. Evonne Dortch

This appeal involves a dispute over the division of a marital estate following a seventeen-year marriage. Both parties sought a divorce in the Circuit Court for Davidson County. During a short bench trial, they stipulated that each of them had grounds for divorce but contested the classification, valuation, and division of their separate and marital property. The trial court declared the parties divorced and undertook to divide their marital estate equally. Both parties are dissatisfied with the division of the marital estate. The husband asserts that the trial court made a significant mathematical error in calculating the amount required to equalize the division. For her part, the wife asserts that the trial court misclassified items of separate property as marital property. We have determined that the trial court properly determined that the parties should receive equal shares of the net marital estate. However, we also find that the trial court misclassified a number of items of the wife's separate property and erroneously calculated the amount to be awarded to the wife to equalize the division of the marital estate. Accordingly, we have corrected the errors and affirm the judgment as modified herein.