“Going to the chapel and we’re gonna get…”: Husband Hides Wedding Business Assets from Wife
By A husband and wife ran a wedding chapel business in Sevier County, Tennessee. In 2004, they added an overnight cabin rental business and ran them both under the name Mountain Mist Cabins & Weddings. After things soured between them, but before the divorce, the husband claimed that he abandoned the business.
One of their employees — the office manager — seemed to take over the business. She incorporated Black Bear Cabins & Weddings. Ultimately, the husband filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case in July 2005 claiming that he had no interest in the business. When the divorce trial finally took place in 2007, the wife claimed that the transfer of the business to the office manager was a sham to keep her from claiming a share of the assets in the divorce. The office manager sued them both trying to hold onto the business. The trial court sided with the wife, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.
Apparently, there was no documentation for the transfer of any assets to the office manager. Also, in response to a question about why the name of the business was changed, the husband testified: “[I was] trying to cloud the issue with my ex-wife on ownership of the business. We were in the middle of a divorce.” There were other witnesses who testified that he had always maintained ownership and that he was attempting to conceal the assets from his wife. Together, these facts led the court to conclude that the husband had deceived his wife and that the office manager improperly had received a fraudulent conveyance.
You can find the Court of Appeals decision at Brandenburg v. Hayes, 2010 WL 2787854 (Tenn. Ct. App. Jul. 14, 2010).
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