The Closing Statement
Judge Ferraro did not rule from the bench.
Nobody does in a four-day financial case.
The memorandum of decision came out seven weeks later and it runs to thirty-one pages.
It found that the 2008 transfer was a capital contribution of the plaintiff’s separate, inherited property to a business enterprise titled in the defendant’s name, that it constituted approximately seventy-four per cent of the founding capital, and that the plaintiff’s non-monetary contributions to the family over eighteen years were substantial and enabled the defendant’s acquisition of the marital estate.
It awarded me fifty-two per cent of the marital estate, which is unusual — it is normally close to half — and the extra two per cent is three sentences on page nineteen about the 2008 contribution and the contempt findings.