In an action for a divorce and ancillary relief, the defendant husband appeals, as limited by his notices of appeal and brief, (1) from so much of an order of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Schneier, J.), dated December 3, 1987, as denied his motion to reopen the trial to present additional evidence in support of his claims for ancillary relief, and (2) from stated portions of a judgment of divorce of the same court, entered January 12, 1988, which, inter alia, found that the defendant was entitled to only 40% of the marital property, which was valued at $161,715, granted the defendant a distributive award of only $23,183, payable in three annual installments, and denied him a share of the value of the plaintiff’s pension.
Ordered that the appeal from the order is dismissed, without costs or disbursements; and it is further,
Ordered that the judgment is modified by (1) deleting the provision thereof valuing the parties’ one-half interest in the marital residence at $84,500 and substituting therefor a provision valuing the parties’ one-half interest in the marital residence at $89,500, (2) increasing the total value of marital property to $166,715, and (3) increasing the defendant’s distributive award to $25,183, payable in three equal annual installments of $8,394.33; as so modified, the judgment is affirmed insofar as appealed from, without costs or disbursements.
The appeal from the intermediate order must be dismissed because the right of direct appeal therefrom terminated with the entry of judgment in the action (see, Matter of Aho,
Contrary to the defendant’s contentions, the trial court did not improvidently exercise its discretion by denying his motion to reopen the trial so that he could present additional evidence in support of his claims for ancillary relief. Although the court possesses the discretion to reopen a case after a party has rested, "such discretion should be sparingly exercised” (Mulligan v Wetchler,
Furthermore, we find that the court did not err by failing to grant the defendant an equitable share of the value of his wife’s pension. Although that portion of the value of the pension which accrued during the marriage constitutes marital property subject to equitable distribution (see, Majauskas v Majauskas,
However, the court did err by failing to include as marital property $5,000 representing one half of the $10,000 down payment contributed by the plaintiff’s parents to the purchase of the marital residence. This two-family house was jointly owned by the plaintiff and her mother as tenants in common. One half of the stipulated value of the house was correctly included in marital property. However, the evidence did not support the court’s finding that the $10,000 contributed by the plaintiff’s parents was a loan. Thus, one half of this amount was includable as marital property, 40% of which should have been credited to the defendant pursuant to the court’s division of marital assets (see, Kobylack v Kobylack,
We have reviewed the defendant’s remaining contentions and find them to be either unpreserved for appellate review or without merit. Bracken, J. P., Kunzeman, Fiber and Spatt, JJ., concur.
