Bennett v. Bennett, 2015 Ark. App. 646

Danny Bennett appealed the White County Circuit Court’s December 1, 2014 order dividing marital property and debt, awarding permanent alimony to Sheila Bennett, and awarding attorney’s fees.
Appellant raised four issues: (1) interpretation of a 2013 temporary order concerning $1,600 debt payments after mortgages were paid; (2) amount of attorney’s fees awarded to appellee; (3) whether appellee was explicitly held equally liable for half the Audio Express stock debt; and (4) the amount of alimony awarded.
The notice of appeal designated the complete clerk’s record but included only the transcript of the October 1, 2014 hearing; appellant omitted the September 17, 2013 hearing transcript and abstract that underlie the October 21, 2013 temporary order.
The Court explained Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 4-2(a)(5) requires an abstract of testimony necessary to understand issues on appeal and that the September 17, 2013 transcript was necessary to review the court’s interpretation of the temporary order.
Because the record was abbreviated and appellee did not object (thus tacitly consenting), the Court ordered appellant to file a certified supplemental record including the complete September 17, 2013 transcript within 60 days and to file a substituted brief with the required abstract within 30 days after the supplemental record was filed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the temporary order required Bennett to continue $1,600 debt payments after mortgages were paid off	Bennett argued the court misread the October 21, 2013 temporary order	Sheila argued the September 17 hearing supports the court’s interpretation	Court ordered supplemental transcript of Sept. 17, 2013 to resolve the issue; rebriefing required
Whether the attorney’s fee award amount was erroneous	Bennett contended the fee award was excessive	Sheila defended the fee award as appropriate	Court did not resolve on merits pending supplemental record; ordered rebriefing
Whether appellee was explicitly held equally liable for half the Audio Express stock debt	Bennett said the court failed to state appellee’s equal liability	Sheila presumably relied on record support for allocation	Court required supplemental record to determine whether the order allocated debt equally
Whether the alimony award amount was incorrect	Bennett challenged the alimony amount as improper	Sheila supported the permanent alimony award	Court did not decide on merits; ordered supplemental record and substituted brief to address this claim

Chiodini v. Lock, 2009 Ark. 343 (explaining Ark. R. App. P.–Civ. 6 authority to permit supplementation of an abbreviated record)
Selmon v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 371 Ark. 306 (noting a party's tacit consent to an abbreviated record when no objection or designation of additional materials is made)