Brew v. Brew, 2017 ND 242

Shawn and Jennifer Brew married in 1997, operated farming/ranching and a trucking business, and have two children (one minor at trial).
Shawn sued for divorce in Sept. 2015; discovery disputes resulted in a motion to compel and a $500 fee sanction against Shawn.
Parties stipulated Jennifer would have primary residential responsibility shortly before trial; remaining issues (property division, support, fees) were tried.
District court granted the divorce, awarded Shawn a net of $660,886 and Jennifer $732,258, gave Jennifer primary custody, ordered Shawn to pay child support ($2,998/month for two children, reduced later), reserved spousal-support jurisdiction, and ordered Shawn to pay $5,000 in attorney’s fees.
Shawn moved to reconsider property distribution and appealed, arguing (1) the court relied on an improper presumption in dividing farmland, (2) the division was inequitable, (3) child support was miscalculated, and (4) attorney’s-fee award was erroneous.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Property-distribution presumption	Court announced a presumption favoring Jennifer for family farmland and shifted burden to Shawn	No record support of such presumption; transcript not in record	Affirmed; transcript not in record so claim unsupported and struck from appendix
Equity of property division	Division unequal ($71,372 more to Jennifer); farmland purchased from Jennifer’s father was not a gift and should be divided differently	Court relied on source of property, parties’ roles, income-producing capacity, and other Ruff–Fischer factors to justify unequal split	Affirmed; court’s factual findings supported and not clearly erroneous
Child-support calculation	Court should not average five years of self-employment income because scale changed (downturn in oil/fracking); income should be imputed or based on recent profit/loss	Guidelines require averaging five years for self-employment if operated on substantially similar scale; no adequate profit/loss statements or evidence to impute	Affirmed; court reasonably averaged five years under the guidelines and declined to impute income absent evidence
Attorney’s fees award	Shawn cannot afford fees and award was motivated by his concession on custody	Jennifer sought fees for obstructive tactics; court sanctioned Shawn for misconduct (pretrial custody tactic and discovery issues)	Affirmed; court acted within discretion to award $5,000 as sanction for misconduct

Ihli v. Lazzaretto, 864 N.W.2d 483 (context: appellate refusal to consider appendix items not in certified record)
Gabaldon-Cochran v. Cochran, 868 N.W.2d 501 (standard: property division reviewed for clear error)
Allmon v. Allmon, 894 N.W.2d 869 (Ruff–Fischer factors and unequal division principles)
Raap v. Lenton, 885 N.W.2d 777 (child-support guidelines and rebuttable presumption)
Entzie v. Entzie, 789 N.W.2d 550 (requirement to apply guidelines for self-employment income)
Kelly v. Kelly, 806 N.W.2d 133 (discussing attorney-fee sanctions and factors for misconduct)