Michael and Marlene Zekser were married in 1993, and they were divorced 18 years later. Marlene appeals from the final decree of divorce, contending that the division of the marital assets and debts was inequitable. We find no error in the division of the assets and debts, and we affirm the final decree.
As we have explained before, an equitable division of marital property is not necessarily an equal division, but a fair one. Driver v. Driver,
With respеct to the indebtedness for law school, the trial court found that Michael advised against Marlene attending law school for
With respect to the allegation of cruel treatment, we find no reason to believe, as Marlene urges, that the trial court did not consider all of the relevant circumstances, even if it did not mention them all explicitly in its decree. As the trier of fact, the trial court was in the best position to assess the credibility of Michael and Marlene and to determine if Michael had, in fact, treated her cruelly, as she claimed. See Bloomfield,
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
The marital residence had an appraised value of $405,000.
The sport-utility vehicle was worth about $21,000.
Her retirement account was worth about $23,000.
The trial court found that the consulting business had “no intrinsic value,” insofar as the business only had one client, it only had Michael as its sole employee, and its income reprеsented merely the fruits of his individual labor.
His retirement account was worth about $79,000.
Marlene owed about $130,000 for her law school education. Marlene enrolled in law school in 2005 and graduated four years later.
Besides the marital аssets and debt discussed above, we also note that the trial court determined that a trust fund worth about $100,000 was the separate property of Marlene and was not, therefore, subject tо equitable division.
Although Michael eventually relented to Marlene attending law school, he initially opposed it, he testified, because the family could not afford it, and Marlene herself testified that Michael was opposed to her attending law school and “any of the activities that had anything to do with it.”
Besides the accumulation of $130,000 in debt, Michael testified that Marlenе dramatically increased her spending after entering law school, “almost emptying] our bank account.”
Michael testified that, although Marlene had promised to continue to care for their children when she enrolled in law school, that promise “went out the window pretty quickly,” leaving Michael not only as the primary breadwinner for the family, but also the primary caretaker for the children.
Marlene admitted that she was unfaithful to Michael, and the record contains ample additional support for the finding of her infidelities.
In addition, the trial court’s finding that some of Marlene’s law school debt “may he forgiven in the future” was based on Marlene’s testimony that she was eligible to enroll in a loan forgiveness program and that her loans may be forgiven if she rеmains employed in public service for ten years.
We emphasize that the statute requires the application to enumerate “the errors to be urged on appeal,” OCGA § 5-6-35 (b) (emphasis supрlied), not just “some” or “most” of the errors to be urged on appeal. By the way, nothing about this limitation upon the scope of discretionary review is inconsistent with OCGA § 5-6-35 (g), which provides that, when an аpplication for discretionary review has been granted, and when a notice of appeal has been timely filed, “[t]he procedure thereafter shall he the same as in оther appeals.” In any appeal, the appellant may raise any claims of error that have been adequately preserved for appellate review. But beсause OCGA § 5-6-35 (b) requires that “the errors to be urged on appeal” be enumerated in the application, when an applicant fails to enumerate a claim of error in her aрplication, she forfeits appellate review of that claim. And having failed to preserve that claim for appellate review, she cannot properly raise it in the аppeal that follows the grant of discretionary review, just as in any other appeal. We also note that nothing about this limitation is inconsistent with the cases permitting an expansion of the issues on appeal by way of a cross-appeal. See, e.g., Friedman v. Friedman,
When we grant discretionary rеview, we sometimes identify a specific claim of error in which we especially are interested, but we do not direct.the parties to file briefs only upon that issue. In such cases, we have not limited the scope of the discretionary review more narrowly than the enumeration of errors in the application. When we do limit the scope of review more narrowly, we do so explicitly.