Jones v. Livesay, 551 S.W.3d 47

Jeanette Jones and David "Sam" Livesay married in 2008, separated in 2014, and have one minor son; Sam filed for divorce in Sept. 2014.
After discovery and motions, a final hearing occurred March 21, 2016; the trial court entered a dissolution decree on May 12, 2016.
Decree: joint custody with a 2-2-3 timesharing schedule, no primary residential parent designated; nonmarital assets restored to parties; marital estate divided.
Jeanette moved under CR 59.05 to alter, amend, or vacate the decree and appealed after the motion was denied.
On appeal Jeanette challenged (1) the timesharing arrangement, (2) classification of three real-estate parcels as nonmarital, (3) the equity of the personal-property division, and (4) an award of a $45,000 nonmarital interest to Sam in a farm based on traced inheritance funds.
The Court reviewed procedural defects in Jeanette’s brief (failure to show preservation, inadequate citations, reliance on unpublished opinions) but exercised discretion to reach the merits.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Timesharing and no primary residential parent	Trial court’s 2-2-3 schedule and failure to name a primary parent are improper	Trial court’s schedule and joint custody are supported by evidence that equal timesharing is in child’s best interest	Affirmed; Jeanette’s briefing was underdeveloped and substantial evidence supports the timeshare/no-primary designation
Classification of three real-estate parcels as nonmarital	Parties agreed to gift interests to each other converting parcels to marital property	Parcels are nonmarital; Jeanette failed to preserve/challenge classification on same grounds below	Affirmed; issue not properly preserved/presented to trial court so not reviewable
Division of marital personal property	Trial court awarded Sam disproportionate share; division inequitable and lacked itemized dollar allocations	Trial court exercised broad discretion; no legal requirement to list dollar amounts; Jeanette failed to present rationale below	Affirmed; argument inadequately developed and unpreserved, no abuse of discretion shown
Award of $45,000 nonmarital interest in farm (tracing)	Renovation paid with marital funds; Sam failed to adequately trace inheritance reimbursement so award improper	Sam traced inheritance deposited into marital account as reimbursement for renovations; testimony and bank records support nonmarital tracing	Affirmed; evidence sufficiently traced nonmarital funds to the increased value, so award was proper

Ready v. Jamison, 705 S.W.2d 479 (Ky. 1986) (substantial-compliance approach to appellate notice requirements)
Elwell v. Stone, 799 S.W.2d 46 (Ky. App. 1990) (requirement to show preservation of issues on appeal)
Moore v. Asente, 110 S.W.3d 336 (Ky. 2003) (substantial-evidence/clearly-erroneous standard for factual findings)
Powell v. Powell, 107 S.W.3d 222 (Ky. 2003) (trial court’s broad discretion in dividing marital property)
Sexton v. Sexton, 125 S.W.3d 258 (Ky. 2004) (tracing nonmarital funds and burden of proof)