But at least if you take Justice Fujisaki's factual recitations as accurate, the attorney here -- Scott Cole -- doesn't come off looking all that great.
"Scott and Kikianne [Cole] dissolved their marriage in 2015, and a “Judgment
and Marital Settlement” was entered by the court. In November 2019, the
parties entered a stipulation and order requiring Scott to pay Kikianne child
support in the amount $7,537 per month for their two minor children. The
order also required that Scott pay bonus child support in accordance with a
bonus wages report table, capped by Scott’s gross employment earnings of
$2 million per year.
For calendar year 2020, Scott’s child support obligations totaled
$90,444 ($7,537 x 12 months). Although Scott paid child support for the
months of January, February, and March 2020 (totaling $22,611), he stopped
making payments in April 2020 without Kikianne’s stipulation or an order of
the court.
In May 2020, Scott filed a request for an order modifying his 2020 child
support obligations. As the sole shareholder and director of his law firm,
Scott Cole and Associates (SCA), Scott alleged that his firm encountered
severe economic challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic and that he had
stopped taking a salary from SCA as one of several measures to keep his
business afloat. He requested that the court suspend child support payments
or set payments to zero.
In opposing the modification request, Kikianne contended that Scott
maintained assets, income, and access to funds in excess of $20 million and
that he essentially failed to disclose all available income to pay child support. . . .
The trial court subsequently issued a proposed decision, to which Scott
lodged objections and claims of error. Thereafter the court issued a final
written statement of decision with rulings on Scott’s objections and claimed
errors. In making its rulings, the court indicated it found Scott’s testimony
“largely unbelievable” concerning his personal finances and transactions.
Specifically, the court observed that Scott had little recall of specific and
significant facts related to his personal finances and that he was evasive and
often impeached by other evidence when questioned about the value of his
real estate holdings, the value of his Morgan Stanley investment portfolios
and financial holdings, and details of other financial transactions including a
loan application he signed in 2019. . . .
The evidence showed that, from 2017 through 2019, Scott reported his
salary from SCA as follows. In 2017, Scott received a salary of $11,126,167.
In 2018, Scott received a salary of at least $578,767. Although no tax return
for 2019 appears in the record, Scott claimed a base income of approximately
$117,000 per month ($1,404,000 for the year) in a residential loan application
that he signed on October 11, 2019. Scott also stated in that application that
he had total assets (stocks, bonds, real estate) worth $6,419,040 and a net
worth over $4 million. . . .
For 2020, the year at issue here, Scott reported salary income of
$100,000 on his tax return. But there was also evidence that in 2020, SCA
maintained $1.4 million in reserves for law firm operating and capital
expenses, and the court so found. . . . Here, the
court determined that Kikianne “proved, by substantial evidence, that [Scott]
has significant net worth, assets, income and earning capacity available to
pay” his 2020 child support obligations. Such proof included the evidence
that: (1) Scott voluntarily and substantially slashed his salary to $100,000
even though his earning capacity was much higher and SCA has sufficient
non-operating reserves to at least cover the $90,444 he owed for child
support; (2) in lieu of Scott’s taking a larger salary to meet his personal and
family expenses in 2020, Scott and his current spouse evidently covered such
expenses in part by taking distributions totaling at least $977,000 from their
non-retirement Morgan Stanley accounts; and (3) Morgan Stanley accounts
paid at least $387,245 of Scott’s personal and business credit card expenses in
2020. On this record, substantial evidence supports the trial court’s
departure from the statutory guideline amount and its denial of Scott’s
modification request."
One more quote:
"In its statement of decision, the court commented, “It is
unfortunate that an experienced, successful attorney with considerable
financial assets and holdings has undertaken vigorous litigation to deprive
his children of the support that they require to maintain their status in life.
At this point in the litigation, the Parties have spent more money litigating
this case than the amount of support that is owed to the Parties’ children.
The people who suffered most during this ordeal are the [Parties’] minor
children.”"
That was the basis, in part, for the trial court's award to the ex-wife of over $120,000 in attorney's fees. An award that the Court of Appeal affirms, and also awards additional costs to the ex-wife on appeal.
There are, of course, always two sides to a dispute. But on the record articulated by the opinion, Mr. Cole comes out looking fairly poorly in this one.
